Fallujah no longer has a police force

It turns out Michael Steele is really clueless about Fallujah (via Gilliard):

Fallouja Police Lt. Mohammed Alwan said that the [local police] force, which he estimated had increased to more than 2,000, had now shrunk to 100. He said insurgents had killed dozens of policemen in their homes and also attacked relatives in a weeks-long intimidation campaign.

A Fallouja police major who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals said that at least 1,400 policemen had left their jobs since Friday, 400 of them above the rank of officer.

The danger of relying on single examples as proof of your argument is, of course, that they can fall out from under you. And while it may be a cheap shot to attack Steele on the basis of shifting events on the ground (the Fallujah police, after all, could have, in theory, stood their ground), taken together with his head-in-the-sand approach for ending the American presence in Iraq, it's hard not to conclude his understanding of the issue, and how serious it is, is extremely weak.

Tags: MD-Sen, Michael Steele, Republicans, Iraq, Fallujah