Shameful.

November marked the 42nd month since American forces conquered Baghdad and the Iraqi security forces were disbanded by order of Paul Bremer. Widespread looting immediately made it clear that we needed to form new local security forces. This need became even more apparent as the insurgency got underway a few months later. Yet in November, we read the lead story in The Washington Post by Tom Ricks: "Flaws Cited in Effort To Train Iraqi Forces. U.S. Officers Roundly Criticize Program." In another November article, Michael Gordon reported in The New York Times from Fort Riley, Kansas: "This wind-swept stretch of Kansas has become the hub of a major new push by the United States Army to overhaul its effort to advise Iraq's fledgling security forces." In still another November story about an American military police captain who is trying to train Iraqi police, Kirk Semple of the Times reports, "The local police force remains undertrained, poorly equipped and unable to stand up to the rigors of this conflict."

Semple notes that in joint patrols involving Americans and Iraqis, "the Americans, swaddled in Kevlar from head to hips, travel in Humvees and other armored vehicles. The Iraqis, wearing only bullet-proof vests, ride in soft-skinned pickup trucks and S.U.V.'s, the only vehicles they have."

In recent "Tilting" items, I have cited similar reports by The Wall Street Journal's Greg Jaffe, comparing the miserable equipment of the Iraqi army with the much better-off Americans.

How can these conditions have been permitted to continue for three and a half years? How can Bush sleep at night?