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Bush in a Hurry to Train Iraqis in Security Duty:
"The Bush administration has told the Pentagon to revamp and accelerate its plans for putting Iraqi security forces on the streets of Baghdad and other areas where American forces have come under attack, even if their training is significantly shortened, according to military and administration officials."

Somehow, I can't see anything good coming of putting under-trained Iraqi security personnel in charge of keeping order. And I wonder how much easier this "accelleration" is going to make getting a few of the "bad guys" into the security force.

As part of a plan the Pentagon is still developing, thousands of Iraqis who are now acting essentially as security guards — at oil operations, pipelines and other potential terrorist targets — would be given a few weeks of training in Iraq and neighboring Jordan. They would then be put on the front lines as militiamen, chiefly in the Sunni-dominated area northwest of Baghdad where the attacks have intensified the most in recent days, officials say. Later, their old jobs would be filled with recruits.

The reorganization is part of a broader military strategy to change the mix of Iraqi security forces — which include border guards, civil militiamen, police officers and army units — to combat the insurgents. A major goal is to rapidly increase the number of militiamen, and one option under consideration is to recruit former soldiers from the disbanded Iraqi Army, a senior Pentagon official said Wednesday.

For those of us old enough to remember, this just screams "Vietnamization". And we remember how well that worked.