Who are they to tell us we are corrupt: Baghdad policeman
BAGHDAD (AFP) — Yes, Iraqi police are corrupt and yes, they are sectarian, but they are also badly paid, poorly trained and lay their lives on the line daily, says Baghdad policeman Mohammed Rahim.
"And who are the Americans to tell us that our police force should be disbanded?" asked Rahim, responding angrily Friday to a report of a commission headed by Marine General James Jones, the former top US commander in Europe.
Jones's 20-member commission was scathing.
"The Iraqi Police Service is incapable today of providing security at a level sufficient to protect Iraqi neighbourhoods from insurgents and sectarian violence," it said in its report released in Washington on Thursday.
"Sectarianism in its units undermines its ability to provide security; the force is not viable in its current form. The National Police should be disbanded and reorganised."
Rahim, father of four children, acknowledged that many police are unable to hide their loyalties to their particular sects and often act accordingly.
He also concedes that some Iraqi police are corrupt -- "er, yes, there are a few" -- but says that this is true of police around the world.
"Police are not the only ones who are corrupt in Iraq," Rahim added defensively, standing guard with his AK-47 rifle outside a government building in an inner Baghdad suburb in his blue shirt, grey trousers and brown shoes.
"What has happened to the billions of dollars which the Americans have pumped into the country for reconstruction? Where has it all gone? There is very little reconstruction going on."
In the two years he has been a policeman, he has been shot at, his base in Baghdad has been mortared, and he narrowly escaped a kidnapping attempt.
His friend Hassan, also a policeman, was abducted five months ago by Sunni insurgents. Since then there has been no word.
"Because he is a policeman, and because he is a Shiite, he must be dead," said the mustachioed policeman matter-of-factly.
Rahim, his hair starting to grey and his hairline to recede, dare not wear his uniform while commuting from his home in the sprawling Shiite Sadr City slum in west Baghdad.
"I change into my uniform after I get to work," he said, admitting a little shyly to being afraid to tramp the streets in his uniform.
Even that factor is not enough, however, to allay the fears of his 14-member extended family who share a humble four-roomed home in Sadr City.
"They worry every time I leave home," says Rahim, who works on a 24-hours on, 48-hours off basis for around 200 dollars a month.
His brother Hussein, 24, is also a policeman, giving a double worry to the family, especially since the brother often has to man one of the multitude of security checkpoints established across the city.
"He has been shot at often and escaped a car bomb attack," said Rahim, who was a soldier in Saddam Hussein's army until the military was purged after the US invasion of 2003. "The most dangerous job of all is at the checkpoints."
Jones's commission concluded that it is now the turn of the 26,000-strong police force -- most of them Shiites -- to be purged, while cautioning that the Iraqi military, which is slowly being transformed into a fighting force, is at least 12-18 months away from assuming combat duties from US soldiers.
Asked if he himself was corrupt or operated on sectarian lines, the Shiite policeman grew angry before spitting out an emphatic "NO! I am a loyal policeman, I work for all Iraqis."
Soldier Hamid Salman was dismissive of his protestations.
"What do you expect, of course he'll deny it. But all police are corrupt. We work with them all the time and we can see how they favour their own sect. Armed militia will drive through checkpoints without being stopped," Salman told AFP.
Other soldiers too are clearly not impressed with the performance of the Iraqi police.
Last month, troops closed down a police station in Baghdad's western Khadra neighbourhood, gave policemen stationed there their last pay cheques and sent them home.
The reason -- not only were they in cahoots with the local militia but they were so incompetent they hadn't even detected a roadside bomb planted just 100 metres (yards) from their police post.
