BAGHDAD (AFP) - The US-led coalition is racing to arm Iraqi security forces, but will not be able to fully equip the police, battered by car bombings and assassinations, until end-2005, a coalition military officer told AFP.
"All police equipment will be distributed by the end of next year," said British Brigadier Nigel Aylwin-Foster, the number two coalition official responsible for training Iraqi security forces.
At least 600 policemen have been killed since the fall of Saddam Hussein, but as the coalition tries to strengthen Iraqi security forces against a well-armed and elusive guerrilla enemy, the mad dash for weapons, cars, radios and body armour has outstripped world supply.
It is a race against the clock as the US-led coalition banks on a major Iraqi role in any future offensive to take back rebel enclaves around the country, which could be launched by the end of December.
By the time of the elections scheduled for January, the police -- with an estimated 90,000 men -- will have just over 40 percent of its equipment, Aylwin-Foster said.
The force, expected to rise later to 132,000, currently has only 5,923 vehicles, 42,491 pieces of body armour, 73,093 weapons, and 13,245 radios nationwide.
On Sunday, Baghdad's police chief Major General Abdul Razzaq al-Samarrai voiced frustration over the police's uphill struggle against insurgents and criminals on the streets of the capital.
"We are fighting all types of crimes. Before (under the old regime) there were several types of security forces, and now we are working alone. So we need training and large numbers of supplies to make this great job," the general told reporters.
"Our enemies they are using all kinds of weapons like mortars, grenades, car bombs and roadside bombs."
The slow progress comes despite the US-led coalition identifying the police as the day-to-day frontline in controlling Iraq's violence-shattered cities.
"It's really the police force that is going to make the difference in Iraq," a senior US military commander told AFP last week.
The coalition jumpstarted efforts to arm and supply Iraqi security forces after new police, army and national guard units deserted their posts in April when the country was swept up in Sunni and Shiite Muslim uprisings.
The April meltdown was blamed partially on the former US-led occupation's failure to adequately supply Iraqi security forces, which fueled poor morale.
But even with a new robust and muscular effort to boost the army and police, in a campaign spearheaded by US Lieutenant General David Petraeus, the priority of equipping the forces is held prisoner to supply and demand.
"The issue about equipment is more the rate at which the manufacturers can produce the stuff and the rate at which it can be delivered to the country and distributed around the country," Aylwin-Foster said.
"There is a straightforward practical limitation to how fast you can make that happen, bearing in mind that we're trying to equip a quarter million people all around the country."
Even, the army -- with almost 20,000 soldiers -- a force far easier to equip than the police -- will not have all its bullet-proof vests until February.
"I'm told we're currently exhausting the world's supply of body armour. It seems far-fetched, but if there's a limited number of companies that make the stuff, then we could pretty quickly exhaust the supplies," Aylwin-Foster said.
But he vowed to overcome the obstacles, determined to have enough body armour for all the Iraqi army battalions at the same time.