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British Say Iraqi Police Improving
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| Contributor | kal |
| Last Edited | kal Apr 22, 2007 03:44pm |
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| Category | General |
| News Date | Sunday, April 22, 2007 09:00:00 PM UTC0:0 |
| Description | Two years ago, men wearing the blue uniforms of Iraqi national policemen abducted American freelance reporter Steve Vincent in the southern city of Basra, just days after Vincent had published an article in the New York Times accusing the local police force of operating nighttime "death squads" that murdered opponents of the dominant religious parties.
Whether the abductors were actually policemen, or just posing as them, there is little doubt that Iraq's 300,000 police have been an object of great concern for coalition trainers working to rebuild Iraq's security forces.
But the police are rapidly improving, according to one British Army general overseeing their training.
"The national police have had a dubious past and come with a dubious reputation," admits Brigadier General Rob Weighill, Deputy Commander of the Civilian Police Assistance Transition Team, or CPAT, based in Baghdad. CPAT works with the Iraqi Interior Ministry to train, equip and monitor the national police, traffic cops and border patrolmen.
But Weighill says that, in stark contrast to press reports going back years, he has not discovered any significant infiltration of the police force by Iraq's radical religious militias such as Moqtada Al Sadr's Mahdi Army.
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