In an appearance on the March 9 edition of Fox News' Special Report with Brit Hume, New York Post columnist Ralph Peters repeated the claim -- previously advanced by Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Gen. Peter Pace -- that during the recent sectarian violence in Iraq, the “Iraqi army was able to put over 100,000 troops in the street, and they calmed the situation.” But as Media Matters for America noted, news reports contradict Pace's and Peters's claims. The Associated Press reported that rather than actively working to “calm” the violence that followed the bombing of the al-Askariya shrine in Samarra, “Iraqi forces did not engage the rioters” and waited “until clerics had calmed the situation before taking to the streets.”

Peters recently returned from Iraq; while there, he wrote columns downplaying reports of escalating violence and potential civil war. On Special Report, Peters sought to draw a distinction between the capabilities of the Iraqi army and the Iraqi police, telling host Brit Hume that “there is a very big difference.” Peters said of the police: "[T]hey are infiltrated. They are difficult to deal with. The people don't trust them."

Noting that while in Iraq he “got to see the Iraqi army in action,” Peters asserted: “During the civil war that wasn't, the Iraqi army was able to put over 100,000 troops in the street, and they calmed the situation without killing a single civilian. It was a real success.”

But a March 2 AP article offered a very different picture of Iraqi Security Forces' performance following the attack on the shrine. The AP reported that despite U.S. officials' portrayal of Iraqi security forces as a “silver lining” in the recent violence, "[f]or the most part ... Iraqi forces did not engage the rioters" and instead waited for influential clerics to restore calm. The AP described the performance of both the police force and the army as “mixed”:

U.S. officials have hailed the performance of Iraqi security forces as the only silver lining in the spasm of violence after the shrine bombing. For the most part, however, Iraqi forces did not engage the rioters waiting until clerics had calmed the situation before taking to the streets.

[...]

But most of the credit goes not to Iraqi forces but to top Shiite clerics -- including anti-American firebrand Muqtada al-Sadr, who called back his militiamen, responsible for many if not most of the attacks on Sunni sites in Baghdad and Basra.

Attacks did persist after the clerics' appeal for calm -- but at much lower levels.

Rather than confront angry mobs, most Iraqi forces filled a security void after the worst of the violence had passed. Aided by daytime curfews and a vehicle ban, they manned checkpoints in Baghdad and patrolled the streets to prevent major violence from flaring again. Even so, some sporadic attacks continued.

In the first critical hours after the Feb. 22 shrine bombing in Samarra, the streets in much of Baghdad and Basra belonged to freelance gunmen and black-clad militiamen of al-Sadr's militia, the Mahdi Army.

They roamed the capital in pickups and cars seemingly without fear of facing down either Iraqi or American forces. Few bothered to wear masks to hide their identity.

[...]

The performance of Iraq's soldiers and police was mixed.

There were no reports of units disintegrating, even though most of them are heavily Shiite. Sunnis and Shiites in mixed units did not turn against the comrades from the other sect. Nor was there any indication that significant numbers of soldiers refused orders or that large numbers of them stripped off their uniforms and joined in the violence.

Had the clerics not intervened, however, the challenge facing those newly trained army and police units would have been far greater -- and the outcome uncertain.

Similarly, in its March 6 issue, Newsweek reported that “witnesses said” Iraqi security forces “did little or nothing to stop the violence,” adding that, in Baghdad, “there were no reports that government security forces ever confronted members of Sadr's Mahdi Army”:

Iraq's brief reign of terror was further proof that the nation's 200,000-odd security forces -- which witnesses said did little or nothing to stop the violence -- are simply not ready to maintain stability.

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And ordinary Iraqis seem to have less and less faith in the interim government of [interim Prime Minister Ibrahim] Jaafari, already reeling from accusations of running or permitting Shiite death squads. In Baghdad, there were no reports that government security forces ever confronted members of Sadr's Mahdi Army, which is beginning to resemble Hizbullah in fractured Lebanon. This inability or unwillingness to stop the militias (Iraq's security forces are dominated by Shiites) was one reason cited by the Sunni bloc for withdrawing from political negotiations.

And Time magazine noted in a March 6 article that "[t]he seeming inability of the U.S.-trained Iraqi security forces to quell the violence was especially worrying to U.S. commanders." Time added, “Just as disturbing was the reappearance of Shi'ite militias on the streets, flaunting their weapons and often riding along with police and military patrols.”

Peters has made similar, though less specific, claims about the Iraqi army's supposed effectiveness in his New York Post columns. On March 1, Peters wrote: “And the people here have been impressed that their government reacted effectively to last week's strife, that their soldiers and police brought order to the streets.” On March 5, he added, “The Iraqi Army has confounded its Western critics, performing extremely well last week.”

From the March 9 edition of Fox News' Special Report with Brit Hume:

HUME: What is your impression of the Iraqi troops and police forces that you've seen? We hear varying reports. [Defense] Secretary [Donald H.] Rumsfeld and others say they are coming along doing a good job. Others say the police forces in particular are heavily infiltrated by serious troublemakers. What did you see?

PETERS: Well, it is complex. And I was out with some Iraqi police and got to see the Iraqi army in action. Now, there is a very big difference. During the civil war that wasn't, the Iraqi army was able to put over 100,000 troops in the street, and they calmed the situation without killing a single civilian.

It was a real success -- morale boost for the army; certainly, they felt like they had achieved something. But also what I found among the Iraqis was that they were very proud of their troops. Their troops were out keeping order. So the Iraqi army after a false start about a year and a half ago is doing quite well. And it has still got a long way to go. But that's very, very promising.

The police force is a different matter. And they also have public order battalions that are like a gents d'armerie -- closer to the police, but with a paramilitary aspect to them. And they are infiltrated. They are difficult to deal with. The people don't trust them. In fact, one neighborhood sheik in a Sunni area was asking this U.S. lieutenant I was with, “When our houses have to be inspected, couldn't Americans do it? We trust you.” He didn't want the Iraqi police in his house.

So I think there are big problems with the Iraqi police. But hey, it's one block at a time. The army is moving out. They are working on the police. And I say the problems right now are really the police and the militias.