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DEL.ICIO.USIraqi police fear danger in ranks
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Keith Hadley/AJC
Capt. Butch Beach, 31, of the Alabama National Guard unit attached to the 48th Brigade, visits an Iraqi police station.
Baghdad — Targeted for death by insurgents and grappling with widespread corruption and the infiltration of violent militias in their ranks, Iraqi police officers may have one of the most dangerous jobs in this war-ravaged country.
Since the fall of Saddam Hussein nearly three years ago, an average of 70 officers have been killed each month, U.S. military officials say.
The Zaphernia police station in east Baghdad, which opened in May 2004, has had 15 of its officers killed, most by roadside bombs. Two were shot and killed last month. Six died in a car bomb attack. One was burned alive by insurgents.
Training these police officers is almost as deadly for U.S. soldiers. In the past five months, five members of the California-based 49th Military Police Brigade, which includes two units from Georgia, have been killed by roadside bombs. A sixth recently died in the U.S. from injuries sustained in a bomb attack. A seventh was killed in a vehicle accident. Twenty have been sent home with serious injuries.
“This is probably the most dangerous mission in this country,” said Col. Rod Barham, of Columbus, commander of the 49th Brigade. “We are the targets. They are the targets.”
The Bush administration has called this “The year of the police.” The 49th’s goal is to train and equip 135,000 police officers by the end of this year. About 80,000 already have been trained.
Iraqi police are one of the prime targets for insurgents because they represent the face of their new government. Outgunned by the insurgents, the police still rely heavily on U.S. soldiers for security.
Ready recruits
Despite the dangers, Iraqis keep lining up to become policemen. Many are attracted by the pay and benefits. An entry-level police officer can earn $75 in base pay plus up to $253 in hazardous duty pay per month, a decent salary in a country with high unemployment rates.
Capt. Ahmed Jomaa, 33, joined the police two years ago to support his parents and siblings. The former Iraqi Army soldier said he is paid the equivalent of $500 a month.
Jomaa works at the Zaphernia station, a sand-colored fortress with blue trim surrounded by high walls and guard towers. Outside is a low-income neighborhood carpeted with garbage and dotted with huge pools of standing brown and green water. Inside, the portraits of 15 dead officers greet visitors.
The 49th includes two companies of Georgia soldiers as well as several National Guard and regular army units from other states. The Fort Benning-based 988th Military Police Company is scheduled to train police in the Babil Province in central Iraq. The 549th Military Police Company, based at Fort Stewart, is stationed in Mosul in northern Iraq.
The 12-man “Police Transition Teams” spreading out across the country consist of interpreters, U.S. military police and civilian contractors with law enforcement experience. At least two civilian instructors from Georgia have been killed by roadside bombs in Iraq this year.
The Georgians will teach the Iraqi police basic civilian law enforcement skills that include collecting evidence, taking fingerprints, patrolling, processing paperwork and properly handcuffing suspects. The Iraqis will be expected to know how to investigate murders as well as handle domestic disputes.
Much of the training will occur on the job as the police are simultaneously defending against insurgents and fighting organized drug, prostitution and pornography rings in the Baghdad area.
Iraq’s police agencies have come a long way since the U.S. invasion, said their military trainers. Police stations that were once burned and looted are now occupied and functioning again. And Iraqi police successfully secured polling stations for voters casting ballots in the October and December elections.
“It really is night and day. These guys that are there now want to be policemen. They view this as an opportunity, a future for their children,” said Capt. Steven Devitt of Columbus, commander of the 988th, who saw the police stations immediately after the invasion.
Danger and corruption
But substantial hurdles remain.
Hussein Jasim, another Zaphernia policeman, said he has moved his wife and three children twice because of threats.
“When I went to work, they threatened my wife. They said: ‘If he doesn’t quit his job he will be killed,’ ” said Jasim, whose brother, Alaa, and three other policemen were killed in a suicide car bomb attack last year.
Baghdad community leaders say the militiamen are tied to emerging political parties and posing as police to extort money, kidnap and kill.
“This political sharing has obliged a lot of ministries to get a lot of people from the outside. During the last two years, nobody checked their backgrounds,” said Abdulah Hussain Al-Ali, 56, chairman of the Security Committee for east Baghdad’s Karadah District Advisory Council.
The Iraqi Interior Ministry recently announced it is investigating claims of death squads among police, The Associated Press reported this month. Sunni and Shiites have repeatedly complained thugs dressed as policemen are carrying out sectarian killings.
“Why go to the Iraqi police? The power is with the militias,” said Sheik Nabil Al Arajee, 45, who sits on Karadah District Advisory Council.
Some police say their jobs were easier under Saddam’s dictatorship, with no insurgency and little crime.
“I do not enjoy it now. I enjoyed it when Saddam was in power,” said Ali Katah, 30, a veteran of the police force now stationed in Al Alawaya, a high-income neighborhood in east Baghdad.
One of the major challenges, say the U.S. military police, is changing the public perception of Iraq’s police now that Saddam is gone.
“The only time you saw police [under Saddam] was when they were going to arrest you. The police were not your friend,” Barham said.
But because of threats from powerful insurgent groups, Iraqi police have virtually hunkered down in their fortress-like police stations.
“The U.S. Army has tanks and Humvees. The Iraqi army doesn’t have all this stuff,” said Maj. Nabel Salah Hamaead, 43, who also works in Al-Alawaya. “If the Americans leave us now, who will keep the roads safe?”
Soldiers from the 49th say fraud, waste and abuse are pervasive in the police ranks.
“There is corruption everywhere, especially if you use our standards,” said Col. Don Currier, of Sacramento, Calif., deputy commander of the 49th.
A group of highway patrolmen was arrested this month for setting up an illegal checkpoint in Baghdad and extorting money from motorists, Currier said.
And police officers routinely skip work for months and sell their uniforms, guns and ammunition, Barham said. “It happens all the time.”
Thousands of Iraqi policemen have passed through one of 14 training academies in Iraq and Jordan. But some police already out on the streets still need to learn the basics, Barham said. The colonel said he recently spotted an officer directing traffic with his pistol at a Baghdad intersection. The officer, Barham said, had his finger in the trigger well.
“It’s the basics. Just the basics,” Barham said.
Short on supplies One of the top challenges for Iraq’s growing police forces — and its military — is supplies. At one station, police said 23 of their 64 vehicles are broken down, leaving them with too few for their patrols. The station has 452 policemen but only 200 sets of body armor.
Other stations are shorthanded. Yet, Iraq has no shortage of police agencies. Many overlap, compete and refuse to communicate with each other, said 49th Brigade officers. There are station police, patrol officers, traffic police, checkpoint guards, river patrolmen, public order troops and elite emergency response forces.
“As well as a number of other organizations I don’t even know about,” Currier said. “There is a constant battle over who gets jurisdiction over what. None of them trust each other because of the corruption.”
A group of 49th military police recently witnessed firsthand some of the challenges they will face in the coming months.
Several policemen arrived at one station with three suspected insurgents they had blindfolded and bound together with plastic cuffs. The three detainees were cowering. One was trembling uncontrollably.
Iraqi police said they caught them preparing to set up a bomb in an orange traffic cone just outside a U.S. military base.
Sgt. 1st Class Joel Perez of the 49th Brigade said the cuffs were too tight on one of the suspects, causing his hands to swell and turn blue. Perez cut off the cuffs.
“They need to be beaten up. The Americans won’t let us,” said one of the policemen, who asked that he not be identified for fear of insurgents. “I want to have two cars and tie each hand to a different car and break them in half.”
As the soldiers looked over the detainees, another police officer approached and asked for bullets, displaying a clip that was about half empty. The officer said his department refuses to issue ammunition, so he buys it himself.
Some police go without weapons for as long as a year, complaining the Interior Ministry is charging up to $500 per pistol when the handguns should be issued for free, Perez said.
“I expect more cooperation from them, and it is just an abuse of power,” Perez, 46, of Biggs, Calif., said of the Interior Ministry. “We are working so hard, and it seems there is resistance at the top. And it makes me bitter.”
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