thedrifter
07-11-05, 08:36 AM
Iraq lacks women trained in security
By Rowan Scarborough
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
July 11, 2005
The U.S.-led coalition has not trained enough Iraqi women to operate checkpoints in Iraq, forcing the job on American female troops, such as the two Marines and sailor killed last month in a car bombing.
The coalition needs trained women to perform the culturally sensitive job of body-searching Muslim women for hidden bombs, other weapons and contraband.
Nowhere is the job more important than in al-Anbar province west of Baghdad, where U.S. Marines are fighting Iraqi insurgents and foreign terrorists led by Abu Musab Zarqawi.
"There currently are no plans to move female members of the Iraqi security force from Baghdad to [al-Anbar]," said Marine Lt. Col. David Lapan, a spokesman for Marine forces in the province. "This might be possible at some point in the future as the ISF grows in size and in ability to support and sustain operations."
Fewer than 1,000 women are deployed by the Iraqi security force, confined mainly to the Baghdad area, where the coalition set up more than 2,500 checkpoints in the past two months as part of the counterinsurgency campaign Operation Lightning.
Three women -- the first female Marines to be killed in Iraq and a female sailor -- died June 23 when their convoy was attacked by a suicide car bomber in al-Anbar.
The women were returning to camp from a shift around Fallujah as checkpoint searchers; 11 other female Marines were wounded, some severely. Officials said there is no evidence that terrorists attacked because the convoy contained a large number of women.
The female Marines were part of a support unit open to women.
The fledgling Iraqi security force numbers about 170,000 police, soldiers and other personnel -- the vast majority of them men. Col. Lapan said fewer than 100 women serve in the Ministry of Defense forces and fewer than 800 in the state-run police department.
The Marines deploy about 20 American women at any given time at checkpoints around Fallujah, a hotbed of terrorist activity until Marines and Army soldiers captured the city in November.
The lack of women in the Iraqi military adds pressure to women in the U.S. military: Although the Pentagon bans women from land combat units, the Iraq war has subjected them to more enemy fire than any other conflict. More than 30 female Army soldiers have been killed.
Insurgents are targeting base camps, convoys and military police patrols where women serve alongside men. Women have engaged, and died, in firefights
Elaine Donnelly, who heads the Center for Military Readiness and opposes combat jobs for women, said the June 23 attack dramatized the need to train more Iraqi women.
"When President Bush spoke to the nation about the war recently, he described progress on the effort to train Iraqis to take on their own defense," Mrs. Donnelly said. "Security searches are part of that defense. If cultural sensitivities require that the job be done by women only, it would seem logical to start training female Iraqis to search female Iraqis.
"Female suicide bombers are a real threat, requiring a gender-specific answer. The anarchists will exploit any weakness they see if we fail to recognize the importance of gender in this situation."
The coalition has met with limited success in attracting more women into the Iraqi security force.
"I think it is more of a cultural issue than anything else," said Army Lt. Col. Steven A. Boylan, spokesman for Multi-National Forces Iraq. "I don't believe there are a lot of women in most Arabic countries in uniform."
The Advisor, a newsletter produced by the U.S. command that trains Iraqis, recently published a story on the first unit of female soldiers, the 2nd Female Iraqi Military Police Company.
Trained in Jordan, the company has 68 military police, not nearly enough to work the checkpoints across western, central and northern Iraq. The unit, based near Baghdad, has been attacked at least a dozen times.
"Every day when I come here, I wonder if I will get back home," the commander, who declined to be identified for fear for her life, told the newsletter.
Ellie
By Rowan Scarborough
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
July 11, 2005
The U.S.-led coalition has not trained enough Iraqi women to operate checkpoints in Iraq, forcing the job on American female troops, such as the two Marines and sailor killed last month in a car bombing.
The coalition needs trained women to perform the culturally sensitive job of body-searching Muslim women for hidden bombs, other weapons and contraband.
Nowhere is the job more important than in al-Anbar province west of Baghdad, where U.S. Marines are fighting Iraqi insurgents and foreign terrorists led by Abu Musab Zarqawi.
"There currently are no plans to move female members of the Iraqi security force from Baghdad to [al-Anbar]," said Marine Lt. Col. David Lapan, a spokesman for Marine forces in the province. "This might be possible at some point in the future as the ISF grows in size and in ability to support and sustain operations."
Fewer than 1,000 women are deployed by the Iraqi security force, confined mainly to the Baghdad area, where the coalition set up more than 2,500 checkpoints in the past two months as part of the counterinsurgency campaign Operation Lightning.
Three women -- the first female Marines to be killed in Iraq and a female sailor -- died June 23 when their convoy was attacked by a suicide car bomber in al-Anbar.
The women were returning to camp from a shift around Fallujah as checkpoint searchers; 11 other female Marines were wounded, some severely. Officials said there is no evidence that terrorists attacked because the convoy contained a large number of women.
The female Marines were part of a support unit open to women.
The fledgling Iraqi security force numbers about 170,000 police, soldiers and other personnel -- the vast majority of them men. Col. Lapan said fewer than 100 women serve in the Ministry of Defense forces and fewer than 800 in the state-run police department.
The Marines deploy about 20 American women at any given time at checkpoints around Fallujah, a hotbed of terrorist activity until Marines and Army soldiers captured the city in November.
The lack of women in the Iraqi military adds pressure to women in the U.S. military: Although the Pentagon bans women from land combat units, the Iraq war has subjected them to more enemy fire than any other conflict. More than 30 female Army soldiers have been killed.
Insurgents are targeting base camps, convoys and military police patrols where women serve alongside men. Women have engaged, and died, in firefights
Elaine Donnelly, who heads the Center for Military Readiness and opposes combat jobs for women, said the June 23 attack dramatized the need to train more Iraqi women.
"When President Bush spoke to the nation about the war recently, he described progress on the effort to train Iraqis to take on their own defense," Mrs. Donnelly said. "Security searches are part of that defense. If cultural sensitivities require that the job be done by women only, it would seem logical to start training female Iraqis to search female Iraqis.
"Female suicide bombers are a real threat, requiring a gender-specific answer. The anarchists will exploit any weakness they see if we fail to recognize the importance of gender in this situation."
The coalition has met with limited success in attracting more women into the Iraqi security force.
"I think it is more of a cultural issue than anything else," said Army Lt. Col. Steven A. Boylan, spokesman for Multi-National Forces Iraq. "I don't believe there are a lot of women in most Arabic countries in uniform."
The Advisor, a newsletter produced by the U.S. command that trains Iraqis, recently published a story on the first unit of female soldiers, the 2nd Female Iraqi Military Police Company.
Trained in Jordan, the company has 68 military police, not nearly enough to work the checkpoints across western, central and northern Iraq. The unit, based near Baghdad, has been attacked at least a dozen times.
"Every day when I come here, I wonder if I will get back home," the commander, who declined to be identified for fear for her life, told the newsletter.
Ellie