ICTJ in the News

December 2, 2003

Iraqi police two-thirds restored

United Press International

By Thom J. Rose

WASHINGTON, Dec. 2 (UPI)-The new Iraqi police force, key to U.S. efforts to bring stability to the country, is two-thirds complete, according to the U.S. contractor and former senior police officer who set it up.

"They're probably 60 percent, 70 percent done," restoring the Iraqi police, Bernard Kerik, former interim Minister of Interior in Iraq, told United Press International. "I would say within the next 18 months they should have the entire Iraqi police force up and running."

Some of that progress is a result of the complex and sensitive sifting of Saddam's old force to find officers fit for duty in post-war Iraq, a process that has raised concerns on several fronts.

Kerik, who was New York Police Department commissioner at the time of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, said the importance of the Iraqi police should not be underestimated and asserted that coalition successes building the force often are discounted. "In four months that I was (in Iraq), we opened 35 police stations in Baghdad alone. We had nothing when we got there," Kerik said. "If I tried to open a police station from scratch in New York City, it would take me a minimum of two years. To open 35, I can't tell you how long it would take."

New York University law professor Noah Feldman, who was recently named chief U.S. adviser to Iraq for the writing of the country's new constitution, confirmed the importance of the domestic police force. "Effective law and order is the basic requirement for democratic government. If you don't have a trustworthy and capable police force, then you'll have basically no realistic chance of making people follow the law," he said. Feldman said U.S. military police are well trained but far too few in number to handle Iraq single-handedly. Regular U.S. troops are more plentiful, but do not have the background necessary for successful policing, according to Feldman. "They are trained to war fight," he said. "They are trained to take territory and to kill when it is necessary to do so. Policing is different."

Paul van Zyl, director of country programs for the International Center for Transitional Justice, said training the Iraqis to police themselves also provides important legitimacy. "It's important that people are allowed to police themselves," he said.

Recruiting, selecting and training Iraqi police continues to be a gargantuan task. Kerik said that as of Sept. 2, some 6,793 officers had been hired in Baghdad. Staffing the force across the country required the coalition to re-hire more than 40,000 members of the police force under Saddam Hussein, to bring in as many as 8,000 former members of the Iraqi military and to train many recruits new to police work.

Kerik stressed that recruits with experience under Saddam sometimes required significant re-training. "They had to be taught the principles of policing in a democratic society," he said. "You had to explain to them that interviews and interrogations do not involve hanging somebody upside down and beating him until he confesses."

That sort of misunderstanding cuts to the heart of some observers concerns that a police force patched together from bits and pieces of old agencies might turn into a sort of Frankenstein's monster, which could actually impede the rule of law.

Feldman said, "You don't want to empower people who were previously used to oppress the population. Saddam's police were not trusted. They were feared and they kept order. You want people to be glad to see the police because the police are going to protect them."

At the same time, Feldman stressed that some old police must be re-hired to stave off a security crisis on the streets of Iraq.

Kerik said coalition forces made use of trusted local sources to help sort human rights abusers from honest former members of Saddam's police force. He said Iraqis can evaluate potential officers much more quickly and accurately than Western workers can. "It's their people," he said, "their environment."

Kerik added that "the vetting process and intelligence is not a perfect process," but insisted that it is a necessary step to putting an Iraqi face on security there.

Zyl said coalition efforts to resuscitate Iraqi institutions have in general been too heavy handed with those who manned them under Saddam. "You've got to develop a process that's more nuanced," he said. He added that coalition vetting of Saddam-era employees "hasn't preserved institutional continuity, nor has it specifically targeted human rights abusers."

Zyl stressed that Iraqis should not be blacklisted simply as a result of Baath Party membership. "People join political parties for a variety of complex reasons," including hopes for career advancement and out of fear, Zyl said.

Kerik said coalition forces will not stop at re-hiring police officers; some former Baathist intelligence officers might be reinstated as well. Kerik said that will be especially sensitive, since the Iraqi intelligence service was an "oppressive, brutal, sadistic, tortuous instrument under Saddam," but stressed its necessity.

"We are still fighting a war," he said. "This is going to continue for some time."