The Iraqi police force is composed mostly of Shiites and operates under the Shia-controlled Ministry of the Interior. In many Sunni areas police officers could be murdered just for showing up.Police are often the targets of kidnapping and beheading, and police checkpoints are repeatedly bombed.
TACOMA - Fort Lewis soldiers in Baghdad are frustrated with some Iraqi police they say are either unmotivated or are helping the people trying to keep the country divided.
Stryker soldiers in the Baghdad neighborhoods of Ghazaliyah and Shula say Iraqi police have been infiltrated by Shiite militia death squads. Soldiers say some police in Shula will flash their car lights to warn the enemy when troops enter the area, although police contend it's to avoid being fired upon.
"The police are bad. They don't have the trust of the people," Capt. Matt Pike of Lacey told The News Tribune of Tacoma, which has a reporter embedded with the 1st Battalion, 23rd Infantry Regiment. "We have to get to the point where the average citizen in Ghazaliyah is willing to stop a police patrol and say, 'Hey, check this out.'"
In Ghazaliyah on Saturday, Maj. Gen. J.D. Thurman, commander of coalition forces in Baghdad, said he'd heard of police letting militia members through checkpoints. "We have got to stop the violence," Thurman told police. "I keep seeing all these dead bodies, and I'm tired of it."