Sectarianism, crime tainting Iraq police: official http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=worldNews&storyID=2006-08-02T144356Z_01_BUL235439_RTRUKOC_0_US-IRAQ-POLICE.xml&archived=False
Wed Aug 2, 2006
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Almost a quarter of Iraq's national police are led by men suspected of crimes or sectarian violence and should be replaced, a senior coalition official said on Wednesday.
"There are 26 battalions. Maybe five or six have leaders who have led them in a way that was either criminal, or sectarian, or both," the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told reporters at a briefing in Baghdad. President George W. Bush has ordered more U.S. troops to Baghdad to quell savage sectarian violence that has continued during the first two months of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's government of national unity.
But many question the government's will to confront death squads that could be operating from within the security forces.
"There are (security) forces in Baghdad who don't feel that they have the got the backing of their government to confront the (militias) ... It puts the soldier on the street in a pretty tricky spot," the official said.
Interior Minister Jawad al-Bolani plans to clean up the 24,000-strong national police force -- dominated by Shi'ites despite efforts to recruit more Sunnis -- by taking individual units off the streets for 72 hours of intensive scrutiny this month and in September.
"We will provide to them the intelligence we have about these particular guys that we think have been acting extra-judicially, and then we will encourage the minister of the interior to replace them," said the official. Bolani has also recommended that the individual protection forces maintained by each ministry be placed under his command.
U.S. reinforcements arriving in Baghdad in the next few weeks will be drawn from Mosul in the north, Iraq's third largest city, but face a much more delicate task in the tense capital.
"(This) is an environment of mistrust. There are certain parts of Baghdad that, if we send a national police unit, they will be accused of atrocities before they get there," the official said.
"(But) we have got to go the extra mile, as hard as it is, to build a civilian security apparatus," he said.
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