"THE INSECURITY FACTOR: Bush has based American withdrawal on the training of Iraqi security forces: "As the Iraqis stand up, we will stand down." But a new Government Accountability Office (GAO) report concludes that "the continuing strength of the insurgency ha[s] made it difficult for the United States to transfer security responsibilities to Iraqi forces and progressively draw down U.S. forces." On Tuesday, Vice President Cheney said that U.S. has "now got a large number of Iraqis taking the lead [in] various places around the country from a security and military standpoint," but the reality, as Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Peter Pace said, is that "only one Iraqi army battalion is capable of fighting without U.S. help. That is the same number as in September."
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