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| Iraq |
| Local sheikhs actively assisting US in Ramadi |
| 2006-02-22 |
| If a murder or serious crime is committed in this insurgency-plagued city of 400,000, the governor of the surrounding Anbar province offers this advice: don't bother calling the police. In Ramadi, it's local sheiks who more often get results. And with their blessing, the drive to recruit an effective police force is finally gaining steam. Former officers and newcomers have signed up by the hundreds in the last two months, a windfall compared with similar efforts last year that produced on a handful of new police. The sheiks "really opened the door to where we're at today," said Marine Maj. Robert Rice, who leads a U.S. team trying to rebuild the police in Anbar. "The challenge is we need to continue to engage the tribal leaders. We can't let them back off." The police force in the Sunni-dominated city disintegrated last year in the wave of violence that has swept what many Iraqis consider the unofficial capital of the insurgency. Only the highway patrol functions, and all it does is keep tabs on the roads linking Baghdad with Jordan. "If the person who got murdered is from a large tribe, the tribe will find justice for him. If he is from a small tribe, forget about it. Only God will help him," Anbar Gov. Maamoun Sami Rashid al-Alwani said. "The people who make the court system effective are not here. It is like a car without fuel." The goal is to stabilize the provincial capital by getting cops back on their beats and deploying two brigades of about 5,000 Iraqi soldiers, one of which has slowly started to patrol small, outlying city districts on its own. By year's end, the U.S. command hopes to have most of a 4,000 member police force working as part of the overall plan to draw down the American military presence. Insurgents have sought to undermine the recruiting drive. After sheiks endorsed the plan at a public meeting, a three-day police recruitment session in early January drew about 1,100 people. But a suicide bomber stepped in line on Jan. 5 and killed about 60 people, including two U.S. troops. Three sheiks also were recently assassinated. Fears the violence would scare away recruits calmed in recent weeks as U.S. police trainers saw nearly 3,000 former officers and recruits show up to apply for spots on the new force. Hundreds of men also continued filing into the center earlier this month after insurgent snipers shot one man in the chest and fired mortars that did not cause injuries. "That's what I've been expecting all day," Marine Capt. John LaJennesse said as mortar shrapnel clattered about 160 feet away and recruits crouched beside vehicles. U.S. and Iraqi officials hope to create a force of about 11,300 policemen in cities across the vast province that stretches from the western outskirts of Baghdad to the Saudi, Jordanian and Syrian borders. At one recruiting event, one young man said a strong desire to control the violence - and find a job - prompted him to walk to the center in a defunct glass factory next to a U.S. base with several relatives for protection. "We have no jobs. Ninety percent of us who come to join the police are unemployed. We have children and families," Abdel Latif said as he signed up for the police force. At another drive the following week, one recruit told U.S. soldiers that thousands more would have come had it not been for the suicide attack last month. U.S. trainers said the force, once constituted, would need strength in numbers to be effective in face of the formidable insurgent threat. "You can't push police out in the middle of a war zone. Granted, we push the envelope out here," said LaJennesse, who trains police and helped organize the drives in Ramadi. "The police can have an effect if they come back en masse, not if they come in dribbles and drabs." Ramadi policemen will eventually face a city that remains difficult for even thousands of U.S. and Iraqi soldiers to control. However, U.S. trainers hope the police, mostly local residents, will provide much-needed tips and local intelligence. "I don't need the police to go defeat (roadside bombs) - the Iraqi army or we can go do that. I need them to point out where they're at in the first place," Rice said. Officials believe residents will respond better to a force of locals instead of Iraqi soldiers, most of whom come from Shiite areas of the country. Al-Alwani, the governor, said residents frequently complain that Iraqi soldiers have abused or mistreated them. Finding enough policemen is not the only obstacle to security in the area. Questions about police loyalty to the new government - above tribal allegiance or sympathy for what is locally known as "the resistance" - remain a serious concern. Corruption also complicates the task: the last provincial police chief was fired in the fall amid charges he was corrupt and working with insurgents. "I'm sure we've accepted some (infiltrators) today," said LaJennesse. "The goal is to control it, minimize it, and give police the confidence to weed it out themselves." Officials are crosschecking the new police rolls with U.S. and Iraq suspect lists and relying on local sheiks to point out known insurgents or possible infiltrators. In other Anbar cities like Khaldiyah, U.S. soldiers have said many captured insurgents were former police officers. The U.S. police training infrastructure recently has been bolstered. Previously, a team of just nine Marines and seven civilian police trainers were tasked with rebuilding Anbar's police force outside Fallujah, Rice said. The incoming team has about 125 people. Three Ramadi police stations also are due to reopen in two to three months. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |
| #3 Self-preservation is an excellent motivator. |
| Posted by: .com 2006-02-22 11:59 |
| #2 This really is slow, methodical nation building, and it does work. Ideally the mood it creates is one of continual, never-ending improvement--if you are not getting better then you are wrong. This attitude is a formula for success. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2006-02-22 10:43 |
| #1 A teeny-tiny silver lining in an enormous cloud. Yep. Associated Press. But it IS a silver lining! |
| Posted by: Bobby 2006-02-22 08:05 |