The newly-founded Iraqi security forces can barely cope with militants without the presence of US troops, according to a secret Pentagon report which has been made public recently.

About half of Iraq's new police units and two-thirds of the new army battalions are only "partially capable" of conducting anti- insurgency operations with the help of the US military, while another half of the police force is still in the stage of formation, said Thursday's The New York Times, quoting the report.

As the report found, by late last month, only three of all 107 battalions of existing Iraqi security forces, including the army and the police, have met the standards to execute and sustain operations alone.

That evaluation was believed by the US military to have reflected the exact status of Iraq's fledgeling security forces, enhancing the argument of some US officials that the 160,000- strong US-led forces cannot withdraw from Iraq in the short term since the Iraqi forces are far from being ready.

The assessment is included in a report presented to a Senate committee last week by Gen. Peter Pace, the man set to be the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said The New York Times.

The poor conditions of Iraqi forces were disclosed at a time when the Pentagon is going to deliver a comprehensive report to the Congress about overall situations in Iraq, including the training of Iraqi forces.

The US military aims to increase the seize of Iraqi forces from 171,500 currently to 270,000 by next summer, when 10 fully equipped, 14,000-member Iraqi Army divisions are to be operational.

In order to improve the readiness of Iraqi forces, over 1,500 US military advisers have been assigned to different Iraqi units during the past few months.

Source: Xinhua