A year ago this weekend, at the start of the first battle in Fallujah, nearly half the Iraqi forces called on to fight the local uprising quit. About 10 percent took up arms against the U.S. coalition.

The collapse shocked the Americans and ultimately forced a complete reconstruction of the reconstruction of Iraq's security forces.

In June 2004, just as the civilian Coalition Provisional Authority was preparing to leave, the Pentagon dispatched Lt. Gen. David Petraeus, late of the Army's 101st Airborne Division, to Baghdad to oversee the military rebuild.

The change has been significant, according to Pentagon and military officials. In the second -- and successful -- battle for Fallujah, in November, about 10 percent of the casualties were sustained by Iraqi security forces fighting alongside some 10,000 U.S. Marines and soldiers.

Much of the attention in Washington, D.C., is focused on the number of trained and equipped Iraqi security forces, which stands at about 140,000, according to Army Col. "Duke" DeLuca, who is with Petraeus' Multinational Security Transition Command. Of those, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Richard Myers said earlier this year about 40,000 are capable of taking on the increasingly trenchant insurgency.

As more Iraqi forces come on line, the day U.S. forces can be withdrawn in significant numbers nears, DeLuca acknowledged. But his command is frustrated with the attention the number is given.

"It's a canard," he told UPI Friday.

Iraqi security forces will never be able to replace U.S. forces one for one; therefore tracking the numbers incrementally provides little indication when U.S. forces might be withdrawn. At the same time, an indigenous Iraqi force is more capable in several ways of carrying out successful anti-insurgent operations: they have better access to more immediate intelligence; they are more likely to be trusted than Americans; and they can recognize foreigners among Iraqis.

There is not a reliable equation to be drawn between the number of Iraqi forces and the withdrawal of U.S. forces, which now stand at roughly 150,000, DeLuca said. The Government Accountability Office reported to Congress this month that the numbers game is actually even more confusing.

"Data on the status of Iraqi security forces is unreliable and provides limited information on their capabilities," Joseph Christoff, of the Government Accountability Office (GAO), told a House of Representatives Government Reform subcommittee.

Of particular concern are the numbers of police. The Pentagon number includes tens of thousands of Iraqi policemen who had left their jobs without explanation, the GAO said. According to DeLuca, many in the Iraqi Security Forces must take regular and sometime unscheduled leave to bring their paychecks back to their families because there is no functioning national banking system.

However, there is one number guiding the work of U.S. forces: last year the U.S. military and the Iraqi interim government negotiated an agreement that would see the U.S. forces committed to training an Iraqi security force of roughly 250,000. At the current rate of "production" that number will be achieved in late 2005 or spring of 2006, according to DeLuca.

"At the end of the year or spring '06 we'll be able to begin withdrawing coalition forces," DeLuca said.

Rather than on numbers, much depends on the ability of Iraqi forces to take over responsibility for security in cities and regions.

"We've already turned over part of Baghdad. It's a bit of an experiment but I don't think we'll have to go back in," he said.

The 250,000 number too is deceptive: Iraq in January elected a new transitional government that once it gets organized is likely to revisit the troop training agreement with the Americans.

"I think the coalition is looking carefully where we can send back troops -- and we will at some point in this, as this process continues. We'll do it as soon as we can, but not so soon we set Iraq up for failure," DeLuca said.

Senior military officials and private sector analysts agree the U.S. military lost about a year of time while the CPA -- a civilian organization not manned or equipped to create a military -- was in charge of rebuilding Iraq.

It had very different ideas about what the military should be and what timeline it should be on. It feared simply rebuilding Saddam Hussein's army --the fourth largest in the world at the time of the Iraq war and the instrument of his repression. The CPA planned for the leisurely construction of a small military, capable only of defending Iraq's borders, and one that would not pose the threat it previously did to its neighbors and inhabitants.

That slow and deliberate plan was overtaken by events, when the United States came under pressure to turn over sovereignty to Iraq just a year after the war ended.

"We are trying to create a very different military than what was originally planned," DeLuca said.

As evidence of the progress Petraeus's organization has made, DeLuca pointed to this fact. In June, when the mission was assumed from the CPA, there was a single battalion of about 800 Iraqis conducting security operations. Now there are 93, all of which are shouldering part of the load that would normally be on U.S. troops' shoulders.

Despite almost daily attacks targeting Iraqi security forces, DeLuca says finding new recruits is not a problem, particularly since the January election. "There has been a seachange in the environment since then," he said.

Under Saddam Hussein, police and military forces were regarded with fear. They were not there to help but rather as instruments of a repressive state. On Jan. 30, however, police and military forces secured more than 5,600 polling sites. There were some 300 attacks by insurgents, according to U.S. officials, but none penetrated the inner cordon of polling sites manned by Iraqi police.

"The Iraqi people saw incontrovertible evidence they were here to protect them," DeLuca said. "The atmosphere has changed dramatically. We have had ten to 12 days since the election where we've had 8,000 to 10,000 volunteers show up when we are recruiting."

Iraq's nascent security forces comprise a sprawling and slowly coalescing organization, spread between the ministry of defense and the ministry of the interior. It includes:

- The Iraqi Intervention Force (IIF), a light infantry force that receives an additional six to eight weeks of urban operations training beyond the regular Army's training. They are designed to move throughout the country to conduct counter-insurgent operations, but eventually will have home bases where they will operate most of the time, according to DeLuca.

- Regular Army (RA), light infantry forces equipped with more vehicles and heavy weapons than the former Iraqi National Guard battalions, which are being wrapped into the regular Army. They will be referred to as Iraqi Army (IA).

- Iraqi Special Operations Forces (ISOF), which work jointly with the coalition Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force and conduct regular special unit missions throughout the country.

- Iraqi Mechanized Forces, of which there is currently one brigade. It was used in security operations in the January election. More brigades are likely, but a number has not been determined.

- Iraqi Logistics Command, which is being developed to provide food and other sustenance to Iraqi security forces in the field or on base. These services are currently provided by coalition and U.S.-paid contractors. Transportation units and supply and maintenance units are part of this plan.

- Iraqi Combat Support Forces, which will include engineer, military police, and tactical reconnaissance and intelligence units.

- Iraqi Coastal Defense Force, which currently includes coastal patrol boats.

- Iraqi Air Force, which currently has transport and reconnaissance airplanes as well as transport helicopters.

The ministry of Interior security forces include:

- Iraqi Police Forces, over half of which will be officers serving in provincial police departments, major crimes units and some provincial SWAT teams.

- Police Mechanized Forces, using armored cars and heavy weapons to help conduct counter-insurgency operations and offer movable reinforcing firepower to assist regular police when they come up against insurgents.

- Riverine Police Patrol Force, operating primarily in the southern marsh areas where much traffic and commerce takes place on the water.

- Police Commando Forces, trained for counterinsurgency operations and according to DeLuca among the most aggressive and effective units in Iraq.

- Public Order Forces, another police para-military force but equipped with more heavy weapons than regular police, and trained in collective unit tactics. Public order police are currently in place where local police forces have collapsed and are being reconstituted, as in Fallujah.

- Bureau of Dignitary Protection, which will take over the senior leader security now provided by a mix of U.S. forces and contractors.

- Emergency Response Unit, similar to the Iraqi Special Operations Force, but commanded by the interior ministry.

- Iraqi Border Police, working for the Directorate of Border Enforcement and patrol the Iraqi borders and some of the smuggling and infiltration routes into and inside the country, according to DeLuca. Some Special Border Forces set up as units occupy the western border and conduct para-military operations.