[Vision2020] Papers Detail Police Abuses

[Tom Hansen]

>From today's (July 9, 2006) Spokesman Review -

Has the Iraqi police force really improved any since the inhuman days of
Saddam Hussein?  I think not.

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Papers detail police abuses 
Iraqi force probed

Solomon Moore 
Los Angeles Times
July 9, 2006

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Brutality and corruption are rampant in Iraq's police force,
with abuses including the rape of female prisoners, the release of terrorism
suspects in exchange for bribes and assassinations of police officers and
participation in insurgent bombings, according to confidential Iraqi
government documents detailing more than 400 police corruption
investigations.

A recent assessment by U.S. State Department police-training contractors
underscores the investigative documents, concluding that strong paramilitary
and insurgent influences within the force and endemic corruption have
undermined public confidence in the government.

Officers have also beaten prisoners to death, been involved in kidnapping
rings, sold thousands of stolen and forged Iraqi passports and passed along
vital information to insurgents, the Iraqi documents allege.

The documents, which cover most of 2005 and part of 2006, were obtained by
the Los Angeles Times and authenticated by current and former police
officials. The alleged offenses span dozens of police units and hundreds of
officers including beat cops, generals and police chiefs. Officers were
punished in some instances, but the vast majority of cases are either under
investigation or were dropped because of lack of evidence or witness
testimony.

The investigation documents are the latest in a string of disturbing
revelations of abuse and corruption by Iraq's Interior Ministry, a
Cabinet-level agency that employs 268,610 police, immigration, facilities
security and dignitary protection officers.

After the discovery last November of a secret Interior Ministry detention
facility in Baghdad operated by police intelligence officials affiliated
with a Shiite Muslim militia, U.S. officials declared 2006 "the year of the
police." They vowed a renewed effort to expand and professionalize Iraq's
civilian officer corps.

President Bush has said that the training of a competent Iraqi police force
is linked to the timing of an eventual withdrawal of U.S. troops and a key
element in the war in Iraq.

But U.S. officials say the renegade force in the ministry's intelligence
service that ran the bunker in Baghdad's Jadiriya neighborhood continues to
operate out of the Interior Ministry building's seventh floor. A senior U.S.
military official in Iraq, who was interviewed last month on condition of
anonymity, confirmed that one of the leaders of the renegade group, Mahmoud
al-Waeli, is the "minister of intelligence for the Badr Corps" Shiite
militia and a main recruiter of paramilitary elements for interior police
forces.

"We're gradually working the process to take them out of the equation," the
military official said. "We developed the information. We also developed a
prosecutorial case."

Bayan Jabr, a prominent Shiite, was interior minister at the time of the
investigations detailed in the documents and has been accused of allowing
Shiite paramilitary fighters to run rampant in the security forces under his
watch.

U.S. officials interviewed for this article said the ability of Jabr's
replacement, Jawad Bolani, to deal with the pervasive corruption and militia
influence in the police will be a crucial test of his leadership.

The challenges facing Bolani, a Shiite engineer who has no policing
experience and entered politics for the first time after the U.S.-led
invasion of 2003, are highlighted in a recent assessment by police trainers
hired by the State Department. According to the report, corruption in the
Interior Ministry has hampered its effectiveness and its credibility with
Iraqis.

"Despite great progress and genuine commitment on the part of many ministry
officials, the current climate of corruption, human rights violations and
sectarian violence found in Iraq's security forces undermines public
confidence," according to the document, titled "Year of the Police In-Stride
Assessment, October 2005 to May 2006."

"Elements of the MOI (Ministry of the Interior) have been co-opted by
insurgents, terrorists and sectarian militias. Payroll fraud, other kinds of
corruption and intimidation campaigns by insurgent and militia organizations
undermine police effectiveness in key cities throughout Iraq," the report
says.

The report increased tensions between the Pentagon, which runs the police
training program, and the State Department, which has been pushing to expand
its limited training role in Iraq, said a U.S. official who spoke on
condition of anonymity.

The report strikes contradictory tones, saying that the Interior Ministry
continues to improve and that its forces are on track to take over civil
security from U.S. and Iraqi military elements by the end of the year, while
outlining shocking problems with corruption and abuse.

Interior officials have taken steps to "improve detainee life," the report
said. "However, there are elements within the MOI which continue to abuse
detainees."

"MOI officials and forces are widely reported to engage in bribery,
extortion and theft," the report continues. "For example, there are numerous
credible reports of ministry and police officials requiring payment from
would-be recruits to join the police."

The report's findings are borne out in hundreds of pages of internal
investigative documents.

The documents include worksheets with hundreds of short summaries of alleged
crimes by police, letters referring accused officers to Iraq's
anti-corruption agencies and courts, citizen complaints of police abuse and
corruption, police inspector general summaries detailing financial crimes
and fraudulent contracting practices and reports on alleged sympathizers of
Saddam Hussein's former regime.

In crisp bureaucratic Arabic, the documents detail a police force in which
abuse and death at the hands of policemen is frighteningly common.

Police officers' loyalties appear to be a major problem, with dozens of
accounts of insurgent infiltration and terrorist acts committed by ministry
officials.

In one case, a ring of Baghdad police officers - including a colonel, two
lieutenants and a captain - were accused of stealing communications
equipment for insurgents, who used the electronics for remote bomb triggers.
In another case, a medic with the Interior Ministry's elite commando force
in Baghdad was fired after he was accused of planting improvised explosives
and conducting assassinations.

Police officers have also allegedly organized kidnapping rings that abduct
civilians for ransom - in some of the cases, the victims are police
officers. Two Baghdad police commanders kidnapped a lieutenant colonel,
stole his ministry car and demanded tens of thousands of dollars from the
victim's family, the documents allege. In that case, the two accused, Maj.
Gen. Naief Abdul Ezaq and Capt. Methaq Sebah Mahmoud, were fired and taken
to court.

Abuse by police is also a common theme in the documents. The victims include
citizens who tried to complain about police misbehavior, drivers who
disobeyed traffic police commands and, in several cases, other police
officers.

But detainees appear to be targeted most often. The U.S. military has been
working with the Iraqi government to standardize detention facilities and
policies, and the U.S. assessment claimed that several site visits turned up
no serious human rights abuses. But the ministry documents reveal a brutal
detention system in which officers run hidden jails, and torture and
detainee deaths are common.

The documents mention four investigations into the deaths of 15 prisoners
killed by police commando units.

Female detainees are often sexually assaulted. In August, the commander of a
detention center in the Karkh neighborhood of the capital raped a woman who
was an alleged insurgent. Also in August, two lieutenants tortured and raped
two other detained women.

U.S. officials say they have known about Interior Ministry abuses for years
but have done little to thwart them, choosing instead to push Iraqi leaders
to solve their own problems.

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Seeya round town, Moscow.

Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho

"Uh, how about a 1-strike law. Death doesn't seem too extreme for a Level-3
sex offender."

- Dale "Comb-Over" Courtney (August 3, 2005)