Officials said the one Iraq Army battalion has been deemed completely independent. There are more than 120 Iraqi battalions, Middle East Newsline reported.

Pace said more than 60 Iraq Army battalions were classified Level Two, or capable of carrying out most operations with only minimum U.S. support. He said this marked the capability of most U.S. military units around 25 years ago.

"I'd go anywhere with that Level Two battalion," Pace said.

Officials said the Iraq Army conducted 448 independent military operations in November 2005. They said the number increased in December and January.

"You've got, I believe, some 34 Iraqi battalions, at least as of a couple of days ago, operating, running independent operations and also occupying their own battlespace," Rep. Duncan Hunter, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said.

Maj. Gen. Rich Lynch, the spokesman for Multinational Force Iraq, said 31 percent of the 435 company-level or higher operations conducted in Iraq last week comprised independent Iraqi activities. Lynch told a briefing on Thursday that less than 30 percent of operations were conducted independently of the coalition.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said the issue of the independent Iraqi battalions has been misunderstood. Rumsfeld said that not one Middle East military has completely independent battalions.

"There are entire armies in the Middle East and other nations that don't have any of that," Rumsfeld said. "Now that doesn't mean that if an Iraqi unit takes casualties they aren't able to take them to a medical area. They medevac them in a truck or a jeep. That renders them not in this status in which they call totally independent in the way that we're independent."

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