Baghdad Blues
For three years, the U.S. has tried to build Iraq's police force. Why it's still a mess
The change of government also brought a macho new interior minister, Naqib, known for favoring fancy suits, dark sunglasses, and cigars. Not content to remain in the Green Zone, Naqib regularly traveled the country in a massive armored convoy. After a bloody U.S. offensive in Fallujah, the heart of the insurgency, he insisted on walking the streets there. "Of course, it was dangerous, but what should we do?" says Naqib. "Either you're a leader, or you're not." (It was dangerous for the Americans, too. Officials foiled a plot by the minister's tea server to poison Naqib and Casteel.)
As minister, Naqib worked quickly to build up his commando project. He fired corrupt or incompetent officers and raised the salaries of those who remained. "We had to clean them out," he says. He also brought back many Sunnis who had been pushed out because of their ties to Saddam Hussein's regime. There were hiccups: The police forces in Fallujah and Mosul collapsed after insurgent assaults in 2004. When Naqib took office, the Baghdad police force had only 8,000 officers and 4,000 AK-47s.
Naqib accepted the U.S. target of 135,000 officers nationwide, setting off a scramble for new recruits. The U.S. military, in recruiting and training the police, operated largely independently of Casteel's team. Soon, thousands of Iraqis were going through eight-week courses at police academies in Iraq and Jordan. "There was a constant drive to focus on the numbers, as if success was determined only by the numbers trained," says Sherman. "But you need leaders--that's what's been lacking with the police force."
The ministry was also lacking the capacity to absorb the recruits. Already, salaries were frequently going unpaid, sparking protests and desertions. Now, it was taking months to place the newly trained officers in police stations. The disconnect between the training side and the ministry was severe enough that neither side could even track where tens of thousands of trainees ended up.
The small civilian team was just struggling to keep up with the numbers. "Nobody focused on building institutional capacity for the police, just on training entry-level police," says one U.S. official currently involved in the program. "Instead, it became a cult based on the minister's personality." There was also a concern about the vetting process run by the U.S. military with little Iraqi input. Some U.S. officials believe that militia members--and even insurgents--were able to slip through the cracks.
Naqib's term in office lasted less than a year. There was an election in January 2005, but in the more than three months it took to hash out a new government, the ministry lost control over many local police forces. Provincial councils formed more quickly and usually installed their own local police chiefs. "New police chiefs, especially in the south, would fire the police forces and put militias in their place," says Casteel.
The current interior minister, Bayan Jabr, finally took office in late April 2005. He is a senior leader in the influential Shiite religious party Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, which had bargained hard to run the ministry. The commandos were viewed as a prize, because they were a national force that could operate independently--unlike Army units, which had to work closely with U.S. forces. SCIRI officials came into office convinced that Naqib, in recruiting for his commando unit, had allowed former Baath Party officials and some insurgent elements to return.
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