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| Iraq-Jordan |
| In Mosul, a shaky Iraqi police force tries again |
| 2005-08-20 |
| Every so often, the NYT comes out with a decent article that isnt't all leftist opinion, all the time: The Five West police station, erected over four days in July on a gravel-covered hill in the most violent part of this violent city, is little more than concertina wire, concrete barriers, gun towers and portable sheds. Police officers mill about, some in street clothes or gym shorts, sorting through Glock pistols and machine-gun belts. It may not look like much, but garrisoning police so deep inside the insurgency's home turf would have been inconceivable a few months ago, say American officers, who credit the police with gathering intelligence leading to the capture of terror suspects even as attacks against police officers have soared. With the Bush administration and military leaders eventually planning to draw down troops, the training of Iraqi security forces is a critical element of American strategy. Most attention has focused on the military, but the police will be at least as important. And nowhere did the police fail quite so spectacularly as in Mosul last November, when a 5,000-man force deserted in the face of an insurgent uprising, sending the city, Iraq's second largest, into chaos. Under heavy protection of U.S. troops, the Mosul police are rebuilding. Compared with some nastier hot spots - like Anbar Province and Tal Afar - they are further along. But the effort to resurrect the police has encountered significant sectarian, cultural and even tribal obstacles and now exemplifies a central question for American planners: Have the police force's improvements been contingent on careful and continual handholding by large numbers of American soldiers and will they evaporate when U.S. forces begin pulling out? Many soldiers believe the police could crumble unless the American troops stay for years. "Without that security blanket, the Iraqi police will be scared, and a scared Iraqi is a useless Iraqi," said First Sergeant Keith Utley of the First Battalion of the 24th Infantry Regiment, which patrols western Mosul. The executive officer of one company in the battalion, First Lieutenant Dan Kearney, said Mosul could see gang-style civil war no matter when troops leave. "While we're here, it's like they have Big Brother looking over them," he says of the police. "I don't think the police are the kind of people who will stick it out." Quite a few Iraqi officers also fear an early pullout. "The situation would blow up again," said the Mosul police chief, Major General Ahmed Muhammad Khalif al-Jibouri, who says American forces need to stay at least five years. One problem is that Iraqi Army units - dominated by Kurds and Shiite Arabs - believe that insurgents have widely infiltrated the police, who are mostly Sunni Arabs and largely from one tribe, the Jibouri. Many insurgents are Jibouri, according to the police and American officers. In theory, Iraqi police officers and army leaders are supposed to work hand in hand to fight insurgents. But they speak of one another with contempt, and the army refuses to share sensitive information with the police, believing it will be leaked to terrorists. "Their houses are next to the terrorists' houses, and they are afraid," said Colonel Nur al-Deen, commander of an Iraqi Army battalion in western Mosul. In addition, the Iraqi police suffer from widespread corruption. A $5,000 to $10,000 bribe can spring a prisoner from jail, says the American battalion's commander, Lieutenant Colonel Erik Kurilla. Many police officers terrify residents, shooting automatic weapons wildly to clear traffic or intimidate bystanders. The police are also known to "arrest" people to serve as day laborers and to steal money during searches, say American officers. And much of the intelligence the police gather comes from beating information out of detainees, Iraqi and American officers say - tactics some fear could hurt Mosul in the long run. Kurilla said the police might be ready to replace U.S. troops next year - if their improvement continues and the flow of foreign fighters is stopped. The police now shoot back at attackers instead of fleeing, and undercover officers are arresting insurgents, he said. "There are lots of issues," he said. "But where they are now versus where they were in November is night and day." Early in the occupation, Mosul enjoyed relative peace despite its volatile ethnic mix of two million people, mostly Sunni Arabs on the west side of the Tigris River and Kurds on the east. At the outset, the American military based an oversized division of 30,000 here, but it cut the number of troops last year by two-thirds. As the Marines invaded Falluja in November, Mosul was seized by an insurgent revolt. More than 200 Iraqi corpses, many of them soldiers and policemen, turned up along side streets or traffic circles, their heads sawed off or riddled with bullets. For months Mosul had no police. Then, on March 23, five dozen men showed up at a police station near the Tigris called Four West, named for its status as one of the principal stations on the west side. Kurilla e-mailed his boss with the heading: "The west Mosul police are back
..for now." Arriving in October, Kurilla's battalion endured some of the most violent urban warfare of the war. In 10 months, the 700-soldier unit has been awarded 153 Purple Hearts and seen a dozen men die, including one killed Aug. 4 by a sniper near Four West. It is calmer now: Attacks against troops in western Mosul fell in July to their lowest level of the year. Commerce has returned, and vegetable and finished-goods markets bustle. But attacks against the police have risen as fast as attacks against Americans have declined, doubling in two months, Kurilla said. About two of three insurgent attacks are now directed at Iraqi police officers or soldiers, he said. Even so, violence against American troops probably will never decline much further, he said. "It's foolish to think there will be a nirvana where American soldiers can carry flowers down the street," he says. "There will always be somebody willing to pick up an AK-47 and shoot Americans." Much of the police force's routine is still guided by American troops, who visit western Mosul's 10 police stations up to a half-dozen times a day and supply guns, barriers, computers and other needs, while inundating the police with constant direction on tactics and strategy. Many crucial police decisions remain with Americans. Over a few days in late July and early August, American officers engineered the promotion of a new commander at Five West, moving aside an ineffective officer. They conducted a sting operation - without the police - that captured insurgents planning to ambush police officers. They captured a mortar team that attacked Four West, again without police help. And they removed the police from a highway checkpoint into Mosul and replaced them with Kurdish Iraqi Army troops after it became obvious that the police were allowing suspicious loads into the city. Asked for a best-case example of police effectiveness, Kurilla cited an operation one week ago: Police officers arrested two men handing out insurgent literature. One told police interrogators where to find other insurgent suspects, who were arrested by the police in a raid planned in part and backed by U.S. troops. (The police killed one man during the raid and claimed he had had a grenade. An American U.S. commander on the scene, First Lieutenant David Webb, said he was not certain the man had been armed.) One suspect arrested identified another, who was arrested by the police and later revealed a weapons stockpile. Almost every day Kurilla and a squad venture into the city to counsel the police. On Aug. 6 they arrived at Five West, where Major Khaled Mahmoud Mutab eagerly explained how he beat a policeman who fired his belt-fed machine gun in the air. Kurilla praised him for training men not to fire wildly but suggested it was not necessary to abuse transgressors physically . Khaled waved a judge's order to arrest a fuel smuggler. But the suspect lived in a bad area. "I need support and protection," he said. Kurilla said he would arrange something. Minutes after the Americans departed, insurgents fired mortars at an Iraqi Army barracks. The Americans rushed to a mosque where the projectiles had been launched, next to the busiest market in western Mosul. But no Iraqi police officers had responded, and the mortar team had vanished. Next the troops went to Four West, a ramshackle building pockmarked by shrapnel and bullet fire, where they met a commander, Colonel Hassan Yaseen al-Jibouri. Kurilla asked about a terror suspect who was arrested and taken to another station. "They're not going to get bribed and release him, are they?" he said jokingly. "Maybe," responded Hassan, who did not seem to be joking. Hassan says 90 percent of the police are Jibouris, mostly from outside Mosul, because men from other tribes "get threatened and quit." "Don't forget, many of the terrorists are Jibouri," he said. It is "only the cowards" within the police who aid insurgents, he said. The Americans left and discovered the corpse of a man shot in the head and dumped on the asphalt of Yarmouk traffic circle, one of the busiest intersections. No police officers had responded. The troops demanded answers from men at a watermelon stand about 70 meters, or 240 feet, away, but they said they knew nothing. "These people live in fear," Kurilla said, clearly frustrated. "They saw something." But frustration is common. One night in late July, American soldiers arrived at Five West to join in a raid. They found the station commander dozing. As troops went over details of the operation, a policeman who was supposed to operate a heavy machine gun walked in; he seemed to be drunk. "Whiskey, whiskey!" he said, bringing his fingers to his mouth. The Americans suggested he stay behind. At the target house, none of the men found were the right suspects. The police were unsure what to do, but after a few confusing minutes they arrested the brother of one suspect. Grabbing the man, a few police officers started to kick him. But the Iraqis realized that no one had brought handcuffs. Captain Scott Cheney, a U.S. company commander, interceded to bring the operation to a close. The Iraqis decided to load a few detainees into a truck found at the home and drove back to the station. Cheney says he believes the police will be ready to take over next year, but concedes his disappointment over that night. "We're starting at ground zero with the police," he says. Stacking the police force with Jibouris was an early necessity in ensuring confidence in the chain of command. Now, though, some American commanders view it as a major liability to have the police dominated not just by one ethnicity, but by one tribe - and one with so many insurgents in its ranks. The deep and scornful sectarian divide between the Sunni Arab police and the army suggests that the two may always have trouble working together against insurgents. Many American officers also believe that the Kurds may someday attempt to seize Mosul and force many Arabs out. The Mosul police chief is an ambitious man, formerly a general under Saddam Hussein, who has turned his force into a rare example of institutionalized Sunni Arab power in a country where almost all official levers of authority are controlled by Shiites and Kurds. Interviewed at his well-appointed office, the chief argued that the Iraqi Army should be dismantled because it is actually controlled by Kurdistan and by Shiite-dominated Iran, where Shiites control the government. "Half of them are Kurds and half of them are Shiites, and their loyalty is to their political parties," he said. "The real Iraqi Army - all of them are unemployed." Grabbing hold of the Iraqi flag next to his desk, he declared that he should be president of Iraq. "I will not allow Massoud to plant another flag," he said, a reference to the Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani. "I will not let Iran lead the Iraqi Army." A few kilometers west, Colonel Nur al-Deen, whose unit patrols the most insurgent-ridden parts of Mosul, said the police - those who aren't insurgents - are largely frightened men. Most of his troops are members of the feared Kurdish militia, the pesh merga. "We are from Kurdistan, and we can't let them know what we're doing," he said. He also said he sees little police presence. "They are sitting inside," he said. "No one is out on patrol." But he does agree with the police chief that a large U.S. pullout could send the city into chaos. "Every neighborhood would be fighting with each other," he said. |
| Posted by:Zhang Fei |
| #10 One night in late July, American soldiers arrived at Five West to join in a raid. They found the station commander dozing. As troops went over details of the operation, a policeman who was supposed to operate a heavy machine gun walked in; he seemed to be drunk. Sometimes I wonder if they deserve our help after all. Allah seems to have sort changed them a bit in the world's greatest civilization department. |
| Posted by: jpal 2005-08-20 19:48 |
| #9 Wonder what effect will occur with this Mosul situation with LTC Kurilla out of the action? Hope the Army has a strong replacement for him. |
| Posted by: Sherry 2005-08-20 18:13 |
| #8 And being referees is part of what local cops do. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2005-08-20 17:42 |
| #7 Anonymoose: I see a problem here. As a rule of thumb you *do not* want local people as police in an unstable area. You want out-of-towners. Well, our troops knocked out many of the bad guys before standing up the locally-recruited cops. We also have the Iraqi army in town to keep the cops honest. Eventually, though, the cops will have to take over. Traditionally, in counter-guerrilla actions, the cops stay local, whereas the troops are brought in from elsewhere, since out-of-area troops don't really know local conditions and traditions well enough to act as referees. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2005-08-20 17:42 |
| #6 I see a problem here. As a rule of thumb you *do not* want local people as police in an unstable area. You want out-of-towners. Since it's a Sunni area, they should use Shiite and Kurd policemen as the backbone of the police force, with Sunnis in non-critical positions for the time being. Of course, you pay them premium wages for a while, but you get what you pay for. Only once the area is very stable do you migrate out your Shia and Kurds, who also get promotions to better jobs for having done hard time. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2005-08-20 17:05 |
| #5 SH: I am reminded of the LA shootout between what looked to be 60 police officers against two armed robbers with assault rifles and dressed in full body armour. Police cannot be expected to perform as a USMC fire team. Iraqi police carry AK's and RPG's. I think the problem has to do with mixed loyalties and the fact that their families are targeted. Between the two things, I'm surprised that the terrorists bother targeting them. But the fact that the terrorists do go after Iraqi cops is a sign that the police were not just sitting around doing nothing, even back when the police stations were getting overrun. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2005-08-20 14:35 |
| #4 ZF - I believe most police are significantly braver than I would be in their shoes. I'm sure the Mosul police force was derelict, but some of the criticism is a bit ridiculous. I am reminded of the LA shootout between what looked to be 60 police officers against two armed robbers with assault rifles and dressed in full body armour. Police cannot be expected to perform as a USMC fire team. |
| Posted by: Super Hose 2005-08-20 14:20 |
| #3 SH: I lived in a town in NC where the local police didn't even make many traffic stops for fear that drivers might be well armed. That's not exceptional - I've read that one of the organizers of the London bombings was stopped by a Washington cop - possibly while he was in possession of something illegal. The cop did not search the car because he thought the occupants were very tense, and potentially lethally violent. I guess it also depends on the type of small town. A small town in a blue state probably wouldn't have much in the way of hunting enthusiasts, and not much reason for the cops to be very gung-ho about weapons training. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2005-08-20 14:06 |
| #2 Good article from an unreliable source. It's refreshing to see facts sans opinion from the NY Slimes. Really tough work being done in Mosul by brave men and women. |
| Posted by: Captain America 2005-08-20 13:40 |
| #1 Where was the expectation created that a local police force was supposed to duke it out with a large number of armed insurgents? I lived in a town in NC where the local police didn't even make many traffic stops for fear that drivers might be well armed. |
| Posted by: Super Hose 2005-08-20 13:01 |