1. Some should go into IA
2. Some should go into provincial police (the majority of police service is provincial, plus borders etc.)
3. Some should become national experts that the provincial force cant properly train and maintain (e.g. search and rescue, river patrol, swat and/or bomb teams, etc.)

The reason is the National Police force (think FBI, DEA, ATF, etc) has no clear mission and the Ministry of Interior is corrupt and disfunctional. Secondly they also called on moving control of the provincial police (payments wise) to the provinces.

The main difference (and its not rhetorical) is the IA is becoming more self sustaining. The point is not to fight indefinately. The point is to get IA to a tipping point. Don’t fall into the liberal trap that you had X troops pre surge and X troops post surge, so everything is the same.

Not only is IA doing better, but various (Sunni) militias have thrown their weight behind the Government. This in turn lets IA and US forces focus on Shia areas. Finally there is a move we need to make, which is to move our interior forces, to guarding the structural integrity, i.e. guarding the Syrian and Iranian borders, well the IA continues to expand its competency. While the General did say that IA was becoming sufficient at maintaining internal order, they cannot control borders, yet.

As a conservative you should recognize that true progress is the bottom up kind, top down progress is liberal think - the government is not the solution, even in Iraq.