WASHINGTON — The U.S. Defense Department reported more than 440,000 Iraqi military and police personnel, an 80,000 increase since September 2007.

The Pentagon said most of the new troops were trained by Iraq rather than the U.S.-led coalition.

"As the government of Iraq has funded increasing percentages of the security budget, the MoD [Defense Ministry] and MoI [Interior Ministry] have taken responsibility for running their training bases and academies by paying the salaries of recruits and Iraqi trainers as well as the operations, maintenance and life support of the training bases, and to an increasing degree, initial personnel and unit equipment," the Pentagon said in a report.

The report said U.S. funding was focused on developing logistics, sustainment capacity and equipment replenishment, Middle East Newsline reported. The U.S. military was also training aviation, engineer, and transportation units and constructing bases.

"For the [Iraq] Army, these increases have led to significant improvements in the percentages of enlisted personnel who are assigned to generated units," the report said. "Nevertheless, the shortage of officers remains problematic, and it will take years to close the leadership gap given current capacity in the officer programs, which have long training cycles."

The Pentagon envisions an increase in the Iraq Army to 268,000 troops in 2010. The Iraq Air Force was projected to reach 5,000; the navy, 1,500, and 4,000 for the Special Operations Force.

"Including additional personnel for training bases and logistics, the size of the Iraqi military and police forces could grow to between 601,000 and 646,000 by 2010," the report said. "Ultimately, the GoI [government in Iraq] will decide force levels based on national security requirements and its fiscal capacity to sustain a significantly expanded force structure."

The report said the rapid expansion of the Iraqi security forces has led to a backlog of equipment ordered from the United States. About 75 pallets and nearly 250 vehicles were awaiting transportation from Charleston., S.C. to Iraq.

At the same time, several thousand M4 and M16A4 rifles, millions of rounds of ammunition, several hundred tactical radios, several hundred M1114 uparmored HMMWVs and M1151s with integrated armor and numerous other equipment items arrived in Iraq and were being processed.

As of Nov. 15, Baghdad transferred $2.9 billion for military procurement from the United States. The report said nearly $2 billion in contracts were awaiting the signature of the Iraqi government.

The Pentagon has established a task force to monitor efforts to improve the procurement and delivery of defense articles and services to Iraq. The task force has recommended the expansion of the Office of Security Cooperation at the Multinational Force-Iraq as well as upgrading the head of the office.

"Assessment of other potential improvements in Iraq FMS [Foreign Military Sale] supply chain logistics is under way," the report said.