Strategy Page has an interesting fact about the Iraqi police:
Since November 10th, anti-government forces made twelve attacks on police stations, and were defeated every time. Earlier in November, nine police stations were overrun and no attacks were defeated.
If you read the whole post you'll come away with a much different picture of the Iraqi military and national guard than what you get from watching the evening news. As the above quote suggests, they are growing in strength and competence. The process is slow, and there are problems finding good leadership, but there is good reason for cautious optimism.
This is especially important inasmuch as our own military is being stretched. The more troops the Iraqis can field to provide for their own security, the more pressure it will take off the United States to come up with adequate manpower to keep the peace.
