The U.S. had originally planned to train 24,000 Iraqi Security Forces at four sites by this fall, but they have received only enough recruits to train about 7,000, along with 2,000 other counterterrorism personnel, Carter told members of the House Armed Services Committee.

U.S. training efforts of Iraqi forces “have thus far been slowed by a lack of trainees,” because “we simply haven’t received enough recruits,” Carter said.