[Vision2020] Iraqis Suspend Police Brigade

[Tom Hansen]

>From today's (October 5, 2006) Los Angeles Times -

BRING OUR TROOPS HOME ! ! !

Yes.  I supported liberating Iraq from Saddam Hussein.  That was back when
this war had a cause.

Our troops are currently being killed at a rate that exceeds any time
previously.  There is no end in sight.  There is no defined goal.  Our
troops are fighting a split insurgency (Suuni and Shiite) in a civil war
that we do not belong.

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Iraqis Suspend Police Brigade
The Interior Ministry acts after the force based in Baghdad is linked to
abductions and killings.
By Kim Murphy and Doug Smith
Times Staff Writers

October 5, 2006

BAGHDAD - Iraqi authorities said Wednesday that they have suspended an
entire brigade of as many as 1,200 police officers for suspected connections
to kidnappings and executions.

The Interior Ministry said it would recall and retrain the national police's
8th Brigade, based in the capital, after witnesses reported that men wearing
police uniforms were behind the kidnapping Sunday of 26 workers at a south
Baghdad meat processing plant.

Six of the workers later were found dead. One who had been shot and left for
dead apparently crawled away to a military checkpoint, authorities said.

The decommissioning comes after street protests erupted at one of the police
unit's checkpoints in the capital, and U.S. military officials requested
that one of the three battalions in the brigade be recalled.

"There is clear evidence that there was some complicity in allowing death
squad elements to move freely, when in fact they were supposed to be
impeding their movement, that perhaps they did not respond as rapidly when
reports were made," said Army Maj. Gen. William B. Caldwell IV, spokesman
for the U.S.-led coalition forces in Iraq.

He said the Iraqi government had "lost trust and confidence in the .
division's ability to serve the public due to their poor performance and
alleged criminal wrongdoings."

The decommissioning is the latest in a series of moves being undertaken by
Iraqi and U.S. military authorities to combat the possible infiltration of
Iraq's army and security services by insurgents or sectarian combatants.

The crackdown on the police came on another deadly day for U.S. troops, four
of whom were killed by small-arms fire while on patrol northwest of Baghdad,
according to U.S. military authorities. A fifth soldier died of wounds
sustained a day earlier near Kirkuk, bringing the total since Saturday to 21
U.S. military fatalities.

Nationwide, nine Iraqi police officers died in violence. Six were killed by
a roadside bomb in Baghdadi, in Al Anbar province. One was killed and three
were wounded during a demonstration at a police station in central Baghdad.
Two more died in an attack on a police patrol in Baqubah, north of the
capital.

In Baghdad, a car bomb apparently aimed at a convoy belonging to Industry
Minister Fawzi Hariri killed 14 civilians and injured more than 70. Hariri
wasn't in the car.

Ministry of Health statistics released Wednesday show that 2,667 civilians
died violently in September, and 2,994 were injured, a level consistent with
the summer's high monthly tallies. A substantial number of them fell victim
to death squads, which often pull passersby off sidewalks, seize people from
their homes, or drag motorists out of their cars. Their bodies often are
found bearing gunshot wounds and signs of torture.

Authorities said they had documented a near-record number of bomb attacks,
including both car bombs and roadside explosives.

Government and military officials increasingly fear that the police and
other security services have links to corruption and sectarian violence.
Since June, the Interior Ministry has fired 1,700 officers suspected of
corruption, abuse of authority or other violations, a ministry spokesman
told The Times.

In the incident Sunday at the frozen-meat processing plant in the south
Baghdad neighborhood of Amil, about half a dozen men claiming to be police
officers entered and began asking employees for identification cards before
ordering most of them into a truck and driving away.

At another location, the employees were beaten and then separated into
Sunnis and Shiites, with the Shiites permitted to leave, according to a
survivor who was interviewed by investigators from the 172nd Stryker Brigade
Combat Team.

A military source said the kidnappers asked one man, "Why are you working
with these Sunnis?" before releasing him.

All of the shooting victims were Sunnis.

Cartridge casings found at the scene of the kidnapping match those used in
handguns carried by Iraqi police, but differ from those most commonly used
on the street, military investigators said.

Wednesday's actions came after Army Lt. Col. John Norris, commander of the
172nd Stryker Brigade's 23rd forward battalion, issued a request to
decommission the first of the Iraqi unit's three battalions.

U.S. military officials said the Interior Ministry already had opened an
investigation of possible connections or cooperation between the brigade and
death squads operating in the capital, and it moved to decommission the unit
after the protests and Norris' request.

"The case that was building against the 8th Brigade of the Iraqi national
police that works in Amil was based on corruption, infiltration, complacency
and possibly committing sectarian murders in their area of responsibility,"
Norris said in an interview.

"They set up checkpoints throughout the town, they run patrols throughout
their area of responsibility, so the question that begs to be answered is,
why were they having such a spike in murders in their area?" he said. "When
they have a significant number of checkpoints that should facilitate
controlling traffic and providing security."

He said the apparent disparity raised a question: "Are they contributing to
security, or are they causing the poor security conditions?"

Interior Ministry spokesman Alaa Taie said the decommissioning and
retraining would allow the government to determine whether charges lodged
against the unit had any basis.

"Were there deficiencies and failures that resulted in the kidnapping . and
is it true that there was cooperation between the police and the militias?
This is what we hope to find out," he said.

A report for the Council on Foreign Relations last year said there was
"widespread" infiltration of security forces by insurgents, including
hard-core fighters who slipped through the hiring checks and sympathizers
who helped militias and insurgents. Some police appeared to help the
insurgents out of intimidation and fear, the report said.

U.S. authorities who were overseeing the early formation of the police
forces were forced to rely on local expertise in evaluating who was
suitable, said report author Sharon Otterman, former associate director of
the council.

"The other big issue is who, exactly, were they trying to keep out of the
forces? At the beginning, it was more a concern of looking for former
Baathists," she said. "Now what we're seeing is infiltration of every kind
of group - the Shia militias, not to mention the Sunnis, and everybody
else."

Sunni lawmakers have complained of Shiite infiltration of security services
not only in Baghdad, but also in many quarters of Iraq. Others complain that
Sunni Arab militias are working hand in hand with the police to target other
groups.

"The security has deteriorated, and the fact is clear that these
infiltrations are partly responsible," said Mohammed Daini, a Sunni member
of parliament. Daini has alleged that senior army officers in the Diyala
region appear to have connections to Shiite militias or the Iranian
Revolutionary Guard.

"There is an outrageous intervention by Iranian intelligence [in the
police]," Daini said. "We can say that death squads are inside the Iraqi
government, through their existence in the army and the police. And this is
known to the Americans."

U.S. military officials said members of the 8th Brigade would be retrained
by Iraqis under U.S. guidance, and some officers might lose their jobs or
face prosecution.

Taie said authorities had not received any direct evidence that sectarian
militias had infiltrated the police brigade, but he said the issue of
infiltration was "natural" with a police force formed under conditions of
chaos, constant threat and sectarian violence.

"When you try to found an institution under terrible circumstances of
disturbed security, infiltrations can be possible," he said. "But it's
important that the Ministry of Interior and the elected government are
working to restore security and follow up on not only the corruptors, but
the terrorists."

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Seeya round town, Moscow.

Tom Hansen
Vandalville, Idaho

"The Muslim world has been killing each other for centuries over sectarian
stupidity.  I doubt anythng will ever change that."

 - dick Sherwin (October 5, 2006)