thedrifter
07-16-06, 01:27 PM
Getting Right With the Law
U.S. Marine trainers are finding it a tough task to coach Iraq's new police force
By Anna Mulrine
Posted Sunday, July 16, 2006
FALLUJAH, IRAQ--At any given time, there are generally a dozen or more prisoners in the jail cells of the Fallujah police department headquarters. Not surprising until you learn that most of them are Iraqi policemen being held for professional infractions of varying degrees of seriousness: firing weapons in the air, absenteeism, taking bribes at checkpoints. For American military trainers here, who live among their Iraqi counterparts on cots set up in the spare rooms of the headquarters, jailed cops are one of many challenges in a city where military officials consider police the linchpin in the city's counterinsurgency operations. "Almost everything that happens in the city involves the police," says Lt. Col. Frank Charlonis, police implementation officer for U.S. Marines who are training security forces in Fallujah. "We lean on them quite a bit."
The embedded American mentors are tasked with teaching their Iraqi counterparts everything from alphabetizing files to the bare basics of investigating crime scenes. The training requires lots of hand-holding, says Charlonis. He means this quite literally, as Charlonis has been known to stroll hand in hand with his police trainees, a practice that his fellow marines tend not to let pass without some comment. "It's a sign of trust," says Charlonis, who also doles out what the marines here call "man kisses"--the double-cheeked smooches with which Iraqi men greet each other. "You drink some tea, get your man kisses, do some hand-holding," he says. "And if doing that gets us one key piece of information, or one less day that we're going to need to put a marine on the street, it's all good."
Much of American mentoring here involves trying to increase the "prestige factor" of the police, who under Saddam Hussein's regime were considered the lowest of the low--"the lowest paid, least trained," says a senior military official. "And none were public servants." In Saddam's era, policemen tended to be "the dumb brothers who couldn't do anything else," he adds. "They were not considered the stand-up people in society." That reputation persists in Fallujah, say American trainers, who note that their earliest training projects involved teaching the new Iraqi recruits, say, not to accept bribes at checkpoints.
Infiltrators. The police force here is composed primarily of recruits from Fallujah, a key Sunni city in the volatile Anbar province, and because of fears about connections to local insurgents, mistrust among U.S. trainers is rampant--even though most tips about insurgent activity come from the police. Last month, Lt. Gen. Martin Dempsey told Pentagon reporters that local police are "the biggest challenge we have in terms of local influences." He added that Anbar province is one of the areas at greatest risk for corruption and for influence from "extragovernmental groups." Indeed, there remain concerns that the police are heavily infiltrated by insurgents and militias. The marines in Fallujah grapple with this infiltration. "A significant percentage of these guys are not on our team and use their position to work against us," says one U.S. trainer living at the station. And there is some recent history to overcome: Fallujah remains scarred from the major November 2004 U.S. military assault to end insurgent control of the city.
The distrust is often mutual. Fallujan police were moved from their rooms near the U.S. transition team members at police headquarters after threats by Iraqi police to fellow Fallujan officers who they believed were getting too close to their American trainers. The marines note that it probably didn't do much for relations that the former bedroom of the Iraqis was turned into a weight and exercise room for the Americans. Nor did it help that marines here spotted Iraqi police high-fiving after seeing a U.S. military convoy hit by an improvised explosive device.
Gen. Salah Khalil al-Ani, chief of the Fallujah police department, says he understands the concerns and anger of the local insurgents, who "have white hearts"--meaning honorable intentions--as opposed to the foreign insurgents, whom he views as "heartless mercenaries." He has experienced resentment toward U.S. forces himself, he says. Prior to the war, al-Ani was a general in the Iraqi Army. "When the Americans occupied Baghdad," he says, "I cried." When the Iraqi Army was disbanded by U.S. officials, he says, he went to work as a taxi driver. "What do you think my position was, in front of my wife? And my daughter--when she looks at her father driving a taxi?" he asks, examining a strand of worry beads he keeps on the desk of his office. He says the beads are an analogy for what has happened in Iraq, for the local residents who have scattered and the opportunities for reconciliation that were lost in the wake of the invasion. "You cut the rope, and all the spheres go everywhere. How can you bring them back? Now, it's very difficult."
Charlonis says he is aware that the general knows the insurgents and works with them. "Make no mistake," he adds, "Salah operates in the gray zone." Capt. Mark Mouneau, 29, who heads up the training team based at the station, says it is a widely held belief around the station house that "none of these guys is pure of heart--they're all taking their chunk, and the general is, too. A lot of their attitude is that rank means they get to skim more off the top." But they understand, too, he adds, that "some level of anticoalition rhetoric" is part of his political strategy. "He's trying to play both sides, and here it's a necessity," Mouneau says. "You can't be seen as a puppet."
What's more, Charlonis adds, the general "has this amazing ability to reach across tribal and ethnic lines." They respect, too, the risks he has taken in working with American forces and the work he has done to build the local security forces in a town where police are often seen as collaborators. "We realize that by elevating him to this level, we've made him a target," says Charlonis.
As is the entire police force. Last month, the deputy police chief was assassinated. Mouneau estimates that the station house sustains one major attack and "four or five little ones" each month. Within minutes of his making this estimate, the station house parking lot is hit by a mortar. It strikes an ammunitions cache and causes a fuel tank just outside the station to explode, turning gravel into projectiles and shredding the tires of the humvees parked in the building's lot. The firetruck that arrives on the scene, the police soon discover, is out of foam.
It's the sort of danger that makes recruiting a difficult but vital undertaking. Many of those who join the police force today are desperate for the $75 base salary they earn each month as policemen--as well as the $250 a month hazardous-duty pay supplement--a well-paid job by local standards. But while there are some 1,500 police in and around Fallujah today, it's not nearly enough, says al-Ani, who adds that the pay problems and dire supply shortages mean that the police continue to rely on American forces for "everything." He glances around his office, decorated with maps in faux-gold-gilded frames and posters of waterfalls. "All of the furniture, the maps, all of this," he says, "is not from MOI [Ministry of the Interior]." What's more, he adds, "there would be no fuel if marines are not here."
Priorities. Lately, the trainers have begun teaching investigative procedures, but supplies remain scarce and technical skills are nonexistent, say U.S. military officials. On one recent afternoon, U.S. and Iraqi forces began work building an evidence room for a local station as a U.S. trainer eyed a file cabinet. "Right now," he said, "that's where they keep blood, body fluids--everything." Others express concern that focusing on investigative techniques may be the "biggest waste of time. They're doing this way too prematurely," adds another military official. For now, some advisers say, they should concentrate on simple security--and retaining the police officers they do have. "They need to be far more concerned about them quitting in droves than they are about not knowing how to do police investigations." In an April memo widely circulated among U.S. military leadership, retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey noted that "the crux of the war hangs on our ability to create ... local police with the ability to survive on the streets."
To that end, al-Ani's staff gathers recently released prisoners, who are sitting cross-legged in the hallway. Al-Ani had ordered their heads shaved (a way of shaming them, says Charlonis), and as he addresses the men at his feet, he says that he knows some of them participated in the insurgency and that there are "double faces" within the force. But he is tired of the destruction, and it is up to them to end it. "You are the sons of Hammurabi," he says. "Your grandfathers built Babylon. They built something we can all be proud of. And maybe one day, so can you."
Ellie
U.S. Marine trainers are finding it a tough task to coach Iraq's new police force
By Anna Mulrine
Posted Sunday, July 16, 2006
FALLUJAH, IRAQ--At any given time, there are generally a dozen or more prisoners in the jail cells of the Fallujah police department headquarters. Not surprising until you learn that most of them are Iraqi policemen being held for professional infractions of varying degrees of seriousness: firing weapons in the air, absenteeism, taking bribes at checkpoints. For American military trainers here, who live among their Iraqi counterparts on cots set up in the spare rooms of the headquarters, jailed cops are one of many challenges in a city where military officials consider police the linchpin in the city's counterinsurgency operations. "Almost everything that happens in the city involves the police," says Lt. Col. Frank Charlonis, police implementation officer for U.S. Marines who are training security forces in Fallujah. "We lean on them quite a bit."
The embedded American mentors are tasked with teaching their Iraqi counterparts everything from alphabetizing files to the bare basics of investigating crime scenes. The training requires lots of hand-holding, says Charlonis. He means this quite literally, as Charlonis has been known to stroll hand in hand with his police trainees, a practice that his fellow marines tend not to let pass without some comment. "It's a sign of trust," says Charlonis, who also doles out what the marines here call "man kisses"--the double-cheeked smooches with which Iraqi men greet each other. "You drink some tea, get your man kisses, do some hand-holding," he says. "And if doing that gets us one key piece of information, or one less day that we're going to need to put a marine on the street, it's all good."
Much of American mentoring here involves trying to increase the "prestige factor" of the police, who under Saddam Hussein's regime were considered the lowest of the low--"the lowest paid, least trained," says a senior military official. "And none were public servants." In Saddam's era, policemen tended to be "the dumb brothers who couldn't do anything else," he adds. "They were not considered the stand-up people in society." That reputation persists in Fallujah, say American trainers, who note that their earliest training projects involved teaching the new Iraqi recruits, say, not to accept bribes at checkpoints.
Infiltrators. The police force here is composed primarily of recruits from Fallujah, a key Sunni city in the volatile Anbar province, and because of fears about connections to local insurgents, mistrust among U.S. trainers is rampant--even though most tips about insurgent activity come from the police. Last month, Lt. Gen. Martin Dempsey told Pentagon reporters that local police are "the biggest challenge we have in terms of local influences." He added that Anbar province is one of the areas at greatest risk for corruption and for influence from "extragovernmental groups." Indeed, there remain concerns that the police are heavily infiltrated by insurgents and militias. The marines in Fallujah grapple with this infiltration. "A significant percentage of these guys are not on our team and use their position to work against us," says one U.S. trainer living at the station. And there is some recent history to overcome: Fallujah remains scarred from the major November 2004 U.S. military assault to end insurgent control of the city.
The distrust is often mutual. Fallujan police were moved from their rooms near the U.S. transition team members at police headquarters after threats by Iraqi police to fellow Fallujan officers who they believed were getting too close to their American trainers. The marines note that it probably didn't do much for relations that the former bedroom of the Iraqis was turned into a weight and exercise room for the Americans. Nor did it help that marines here spotted Iraqi police high-fiving after seeing a U.S. military convoy hit by an improvised explosive device.
Gen. Salah Khalil al-Ani, chief of the Fallujah police department, says he understands the concerns and anger of the local insurgents, who "have white hearts"--meaning honorable intentions--as opposed to the foreign insurgents, whom he views as "heartless mercenaries." He has experienced resentment toward U.S. forces himself, he says. Prior to the war, al-Ani was a general in the Iraqi Army. "When the Americans occupied Baghdad," he says, "I cried." When the Iraqi Army was disbanded by U.S. officials, he says, he went to work as a taxi driver. "What do you think my position was, in front of my wife? And my daughter--when she looks at her father driving a taxi?" he asks, examining a strand of worry beads he keeps on the desk of his office. He says the beads are an analogy for what has happened in Iraq, for the local residents who have scattered and the opportunities for reconciliation that were lost in the wake of the invasion. "You cut the rope, and all the spheres go everywhere. How can you bring them back? Now, it's very difficult."
Charlonis says he is aware that the general knows the insurgents and works with them. "Make no mistake," he adds, "Salah operates in the gray zone." Capt. Mark Mouneau, 29, who heads up the training team based at the station, says it is a widely held belief around the station house that "none of these guys is pure of heart--they're all taking their chunk, and the general is, too. A lot of their attitude is that rank means they get to skim more off the top." But they understand, too, he adds, that "some level of anticoalition rhetoric" is part of his political strategy. "He's trying to play both sides, and here it's a necessity," Mouneau says. "You can't be seen as a puppet."
What's more, Charlonis adds, the general "has this amazing ability to reach across tribal and ethnic lines." They respect, too, the risks he has taken in working with American forces and the work he has done to build the local security forces in a town where police are often seen as collaborators. "We realize that by elevating him to this level, we've made him a target," says Charlonis.
As is the entire police force. Last month, the deputy police chief was assassinated. Mouneau estimates that the station house sustains one major attack and "four or five little ones" each month. Within minutes of his making this estimate, the station house parking lot is hit by a mortar. It strikes an ammunitions cache and causes a fuel tank just outside the station to explode, turning gravel into projectiles and shredding the tires of the humvees parked in the building's lot. The firetruck that arrives on the scene, the police soon discover, is out of foam.
It's the sort of danger that makes recruiting a difficult but vital undertaking. Many of those who join the police force today are desperate for the $75 base salary they earn each month as policemen--as well as the $250 a month hazardous-duty pay supplement--a well-paid job by local standards. But while there are some 1,500 police in and around Fallujah today, it's not nearly enough, says al-Ani, who adds that the pay problems and dire supply shortages mean that the police continue to rely on American forces for "everything." He glances around his office, decorated with maps in faux-gold-gilded frames and posters of waterfalls. "All of the furniture, the maps, all of this," he says, "is not from MOI [Ministry of the Interior]." What's more, he adds, "there would be no fuel if marines are not here."
Priorities. Lately, the trainers have begun teaching investigative procedures, but supplies remain scarce and technical skills are nonexistent, say U.S. military officials. On one recent afternoon, U.S. and Iraqi forces began work building an evidence room for a local station as a U.S. trainer eyed a file cabinet. "Right now," he said, "that's where they keep blood, body fluids--everything." Others express concern that focusing on investigative techniques may be the "biggest waste of time. They're doing this way too prematurely," adds another military official. For now, some advisers say, they should concentrate on simple security--and retaining the police officers they do have. "They need to be far more concerned about them quitting in droves than they are about not knowing how to do police investigations." In an April memo widely circulated among U.S. military leadership, retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey noted that "the crux of the war hangs on our ability to create ... local police with the ability to survive on the streets."
To that end, al-Ani's staff gathers recently released prisoners, who are sitting cross-legged in the hallway. Al-Ani had ordered their heads shaved (a way of shaming them, says Charlonis), and as he addresses the men at his feet, he says that he knows some of them participated in the insurgency and that there are "double faces" within the force. But he is tired of the destruction, and it is up to them to end it. "You are the sons of Hammurabi," he says. "Your grandfathers built Babylon. They built something we can all be proud of. And maybe one day, so can you."
Ellie