The civil defense corps is at 25,000 members, with another 15,000 to go.

"We are also welcoming former army members into the civil defense corps," he said.

That is bad news, indeed, for a team with a depleted defense corps.

He also came back to a team with a decimated defense corps.

By the spring, he said, 36 battalions of the Iraqi civil defense corps would be formed.

Is there any interest at Police Headquarters in a civil defense corps of this sort?

But some, even within the Pentagon, argue that the less expensive civil defense corps should be the priority.

At 24, he is already a veteran on a defense corps filled with youth, inexperience and, just maybe, promise.

While the Iraqi defense corps can provide a security umbrella, this is now a war requiring police, not soldiers, to track down bombers.

The national guard, originally called the Iraqi civil defense corps, had none of that institutional loyalty or history.