WASHINGTON, Jan 18: US Secretary of State-designate Condoleezza Rice acknowledged on Tuesday problems with Iraqi security forces failing to turn up for duty, which undercuts the strategy for eventually withdrawing US troops.

In addition, her estimate of more than 120,000 Iraqi security forces now operating was challenged by a senior Democratic Senator, who said the number of adequately trained Iraqis was actually about 4,000.

Speaking during the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on her nomination, she said military power alone could not end the raging violence and pointed to the Jan 30 elections as a way to stabilize Iraq by advancing democracy and depriving the insurgency of the motive of opposing a US-picked government.

"The insurgency must now be dealt with through the political mobilization of the Iraqi people - which is why these elections are so important - through economic reconstruction ... and most importantly through Iraqi forces," she said.

The Bush administration has said its plan for reducing its troop level in Iraq, possibly beginning this year, relies on bolstering Iraqi forces so that they can take over duties from the US military.

"We think the number (of Iraqi forces) right now is somewhere over 120,000," Ms Rice said. "We think that among those people there are clearly, continue to be, questions about on-duty time - that is, people who don't report for duty - and so this is being looked at," Ms Rice said at her Senate confirmation hearing.

She said the Pentagon was working to "address some of these problems of leadership and morale and desertion". Sen Joe Biden of Delaware, the top Democrat on the committee who said he had made three visits to Iraq since the US-led invasion in 2003, said her estimate was too high. "I think you'll find, if you speak to the folks on the ground, they don't think there's more than 4,000 actually trained Iraqi forces," he said. -Reuters