According to the Brookings Institute
Iraq Index (large PDF), the stated goal of the interim government and the US military is to have 142,190 police officers fully trained and equipped at some point in the future. As of December, there are 53,571 police officers who are either partially or fully trained. (p.17) The rate of increase seems to be roughly 4,000 to 4,500 partially or fully trained officers per month since September '04. I am not seeing any indication of the effects of the mass desertion/resignation in Mosul or elsewhere reflected in this index. The current group of partially or fully trained police officers seems to be woefully underequipped with vehicles, body armor and communications while it has enough weapons for a force that is only 37% of the future goal.
Kuna is reporting that over
1,300 Iraqi police officers have died in the past eighteen months due to insurgent attacks. [hat tip to
Lunaville.] This is a rate of 72 officers per month killed. I do not have any information on the number of officers wounded by attacks, but I am assuming that the monthly rate of officers wounded sufficiently severely so that they can not physically resume work, is at least the same as the fatality rate. This would be an out of action casualty rate of approximately 150 officers per month. It is also a rate that is accelerating (May to August 03 was safer than pretty much any time since then.)
Reuters is reporting that the police are experiencing significant defections, desertions, and retirement as some are fleeing the country to avoid the violence that is plaguing the nation.
If the police are the cornerstone of an effective Iraqization policy it would behoove us to do a quick input output model of the growth rate of the effective (non-informing to the insurgents AND MOTIVATED) police force available. The model is pretty simple to begin with: Effective Force in time T = Effective Force in Time (T-1)+New Officers-Losses or
E(t)=E(t-1)+N(f)-L(f).
Filling in some aspects of the equation shows the following:
e(t)=E(t-1)+N(newly trained officers + old officers returning from injury/desertion) - L(permanent casualties + desertions + defections + retirement from old age + retirement due to fear + new infilitration by insurgents - new loss of motivation/just getting a paycheck cops)
Given that there have been several mass desertions, mainly in the Sunni Arab dominated areas and that the police force is effectively and systemically infilitrated by the insugents, this equation is not a good one for the United States. There may be an effective police force in Kurdistan and some of the southern Shi'ite cities, but that is not where the fighting is occuring (overwhelmingly at least). The desertions, casualties, loss of motivation/just putting in your time for a paycheck and infiltration of police units are hitting the police the hardest in the areas where they are needed (from the US perspective) the most.