Training of Palestinian forces gets slow start

By Adam Entous

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - A long-delayed U.S. programme to train the backbone of the Palestinian security forces will start this month but is only projected to graduate 2,000 men in 2008, a pace some officials see as too slow to underpin a state.

Israeli, Palestinian and Western officials said the first battalion of nearly 700 U.S.-screened recruits to an overhauled National Security Force will cross into Jordan this month for the American-funded training after a nearly year-long delay.

U.S. President George W. Bush, who arrived in Jerusalem on Wednesday for a three-day visit to Israel and the occupied West Bank, has made overhauling Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's security forces a centrepiece of his push for agreement on a Palestinian state before he leaves office in January 2009.

But the slow start to the U.S. programme could fuel doubts about peace efforts that hinge in large part on convincing Israel the Palestinians have the capacity to combat militants before its army leaves occupied land, Western officials said.

U.S. government documents show the four-month-long courses, at a facility in Jordan already used by U.S.-backed Iraqi forces, will focus on law and order and policing training. None of the instructors will be U.S. government personnel.

Zakaria al-Qaq of al-Quds University said U.S. training for just 2,000 security men was "meaningless" because "it isn't going to convince Israel and it's not going to change the (security) situation... The problem is political."

A senior Israeli official acknowledged Palestinian forces are "perceived by Israel as a joke and irrelevant ... Two thousand is a good beginning but a lot more will be needed".

Palestinian and many Western observers blame Israel for undermining the U.S.-led security overhaul, which could help the Palestinians make the case that they are ready for statehood.