Iraqi Force Development in 2006

June 19, 2006

Iraqi forces continued to make significant progress during the first half of 2006, but they did so in the face of major political obstacles. Iraqi force development faced the challenge of an insurgency that continued to show it could strike at the sectarian and ethnic fault lines in Iraq, and could exploit the lack of an effective Iraqi government and leadership to push the country towards civil war. At the same time, sectarian and ethnic militias and security forces became a steadily more serious problem, rivaling the insurgency as a threat to Iraq security.