In his November 30 speech at the U.S. Naval Academy, President Bush acknowledged that only one Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) battalion is capable of operating independently of the United States-led coalition. Nevertheless, on the December 1 broadcast of NBC's Today, Mary Matalin, a former assistant to Bush and counselor to Vice President Dick Cheney, falsely claimed that one-third of the roughly 120 Iraqi army and police battalions cited by Bush as fighting Iraqi insurgents are “working by themselves.” Similarly, on the November 30 broadcast of ABC's Nightline, host Cynthia McFadden left unchallenged Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Peter Pace's false characterization of operations carried out by "[a]lmost 30 battalions" as “independent operations, so to speak.”

Noting that “only one Iraqi battalion has achieved complete independence from the coalition,” Bush explained in his November 30 speech that in order to achieve independence, Iraqi battalions must acquire the capacity to perform a number of tasks currently carried out by coalition forces. According to Bush, in addition to having the ability to engage the enemy, an independent unit “must also have the ability to provide its own support elements, including logistics, airlift, intelligence, and command and control through their ministries.” He added, “Not every Iraqi unit has to meet this level of capability in order for the Iraqi security forces to take the lead in the fight against the enemy.”

On Today, Matalin falsely claimed that one-third of Iraqi battalions are operating on their own:

KATIE COURIC (host): The president said there are 120 Iraqi army and police combat battalions operating in Iraq. That's roughly 96,000 troops. But why, if that is the case, is the violence not declining? Is the very presence of U.S. forces in Iraq fueling this insurgency?

MATALIN: Katie, the --you know, I don't know how many different ways to say to Democrats how much progress has been made in just a year. There are over 212,000 Iraqis trained. The two-thirds of those battalions are working side-by-side with the Americans. A third of them are working by themselves. In March there are 400-500 tips from locals. Now there are 4,700 tips. It's human intelligence on the ground. There's progress every day being made standing up the Iraqi armies and security forces, and there's progress being made every day on the political front. We're where about -- in two weeks from tomorrow -- about to have the first self-determined elections in that region. They have the first and only constitution in that region. The per capita income has doubled --

COURIC: Mm-hmm.

MATALIN: It's up 30 percent from where it was before the year. There's progress on every single front -- military, economic, political -- on the president's strategy. It takes time. In three years, they've made enormous progress. That is progress, those are facts. That's not emotion, that's not demagoguery. That is fact.

In fact, Bush claimed in his November 30 speech that of the roughly 120 Iraqi battalions “in the fight against the terrorists ... about 80 Iraqi battalions are fighting side by side with coalition forces, and about 40 others are taking the lead in the fight.” Bush said that the 40 battalions “taking the lead” -- apparently the battalions Matalin cited -- receive “some coalition support.”

In addition, Matalin's statement that there are “212,000 Iraqis trained” is misleading, because less than half of them are members of the 120 battalions that Bush said are “in the fight.” While Bush did not say how many Iraqi troops were in those battalions, he did note that the battalions are “typically comprised of between 350 and 800 Iraqi forces.” In other words, there are between 42,000 and 96,000 (Couric's estimate) Iraqi troops “in the fight.”

Pace's Nightline assertion also conflicted with Bush's acknowledgement that only one Iraqi battalion is capable of operating independently of the coalition:

PACE: I think the American people can begin to look at the territory in Iraq and begin to understand how much of Iraq is actually being controlled by Iraqi forces. Today, there's one division that's controlling about 14,000 to 16,000 Iraqi troops, four brigades each of about 3,000 to 4,000. Almost 30 battalions, each of about 700, that are controlling their own territory, independent operations, so to speak. That number will continue to grow. And you can watch the map of Iraq, as the Iraqi police and the Iraqi armed forces take over more and more control of more and more territory.

Pace did not explain what he meant by “so to speak,” and McFadden made no attempt to challenge his statement. But Bush noted in his speech that “over 30 Iraqi Army battalions have assumed primary control of their own areas of responsibility.” An October 13 Pentagon report to Congress titled "Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq" explained:

At present, the Iraqi Army is in the lead for planning and executing counterinsurgency operations in one Iraqi province that is roughly the size of New Jersey. The ISF also have the lead for 87 square miles in Baghdad and over 450 square miles of battle space in the other Iraqi provinces. Coalition Forces continue to support and assist the ISF in these areas as they move towards the capability for independent operations.

A number of experts, including U.S. military officials, have outlined the extent to which the non-independent Iraqi battalions still require coalition support. On the November 30 edition of Fox News' Your World with Neil Cavuto, for instance, host Cavuto interviewed Col. Edward Cardon, an American commander in the training operation. Cavuto referred to "[t]his report ... that 40 battalions are ready to fend for themselves." Cardon corrected him, noting that “40 battalions are, I think, are ready to fight.” Cardon explained: “Now, fend for themselves, the problem that we have had here is with -- the Ministry of Defense has not developed as fast as the fighting forces on the ground. And that's where we provide a lot of the assistance and logistics.”

On December 1, USA Today reported that Lt. Col. Fred Wellman, Baghdad spokesman for the ISF training program, blamed the lack of independent battalions on the ISF's inability to support its troops:

Lt. Col. Fred Wellman, spokesman in Baghdad for the training program, says that's largely because the Iraqi military lacks what it needs to support its soldiers, no matter how well trained. Iraqi troops often operate in bleak living and working conditions, he says. They lack money to pay for telephone or Internet services. Paychecks are late. Sewage sometimes pools on their bases, a stark contrast to the smooth-running bases of their U.S. counterparts.

“Our mission now is building a bureaucracy,” Wellman said. “You can't have a fighting unit survive on the field if they're not being fed or being paid. We have a long way to go with that.”

And in a December 1 article (subscription required) in The Atlantic Monthly, James Fallows reported that "[t]he United States is not helping Iraq develop many" of the capabilities necessary to support combat operations and that the ISF will continue to rely on Americans to provide “air support, intelligence and communications networks, and other advanced systems”:

When U.S. policy changed from counting every Iraqi in uniform to judging how many whole units were ready to function, a triage decision was made. The Iraqis would not be trained anytime soon for the whole range of military functions; they would start with the most basic combat and security duties. The idea, as a former high-ranking administration official put it, was “We're building a spearhead, not the whole spear.”

The rest of the spear consists of the specialized, often technically advanced functions that multiply the combat units' strength. These are as simple as logistics -- getting food, fuel, ammunition, spare parts, where they are needed -- and as complex as battlefield surgical units, satellite-based spy services, and air support from helicopters and fighter planes.

The United States is not helping Iraq develop many of these other functions. Sharp as the Iraqi spearhead may become, on its own it will be relatively weak. The Iraqis know their own territory and culture, and they will be fighting an insurgency, not a heavily equipped land army. But if they can't count on the Americans to keep providing air support, intelligence and communications networks, and other advanced systems, they will never emerge as an effective force. So the United States will have to continue to provide all this.

Finally, a December 1 Wall Street Journal article (subscription required) questioned the extent to which Iraqi battalions were prepared even to take the lead in fighting the insurgency. The Journal noted that Bush had claimed in his speech that in contrast to the 2004 Fallajuh campaign, the recent assault on Tal Afar was “primarily led by Iraqi security forces -- 11 Iraqi battalions, backed by five coalition battalions providing support.” However, the Journal reported:

But experts warned against extrapolating too heavily from the Tal Afar assault. They noted that Iraqi forces used in the attack were battle-hardened Kurdish fighters, not new recruits trained by Americans. Iraqi forces played an active role, but the experts said American commanders planned the overall assault and sent U.S. forces into areas where the insurgent presence was believed strongest. And the overall level of combat was far fiercer in Fallujah than in Tal Afar, which insurgents had largely deserted, they noted.