The Politics of Policing

Two dozen bare-chested young men line up outside a local police station, waiting to sign up for Iraq's National Police. Most are wearing track pants or shorts. The registrars check their bodies for bullet scars or elaborate tattoos—marks that could signify time in prison or even membership in a militia or a terrorist group like Al Qaeda. A high-ranking general dismisses one man whose arm is embroidered with snakes and markings that look like hieroglyphics and another for poor eyesight, but most are waved on to the next step. Remarkably, this tableau unfolds in the mostly Christian town of Tall Kayf, near Mosul, where the force is actively recruiting Yazidian, Shabak, Christians and other minorities, as well as Sunni Muslims.

It's a sea change from just two years ago, when, far from seeking ethnic and religious diversity, the National Police (NP) was a widely reviled Shiite redoubt whose death squads tortured and murdered hundreds of Sunnis in a long-running orgy of retribution. Americans and Iraqis alike called for disbanding the force, with some demanding the sacking of its overseer, then-Interior Minister Bayan Jabr, for human rights violations. Many saw the NP as a virtual arm of the Badr Corps, the Shiite-dominated, pro-Iranian military wing of the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council said to be behind extrajudicial killings. "They were involved in a lot of things that weren't even shady; they were downright criminal," concedes Brig. Gen. David Phillips, the senior U.S. military police officer in Iraq. Now the NP is said to be far superior to its earlier incarnation and is being touted as a key element for stabilizing the country and securing the peace.  

Some, however, are not so sure. In a country that already has the extensive, localized Iraqi Police Service (IPS) to maintain law and order and an army to defend its borders, it is not immediately clear why a niche must be carved out for an organization considered both tainted and superfluous. But as the security forces jostle for position, resources, arms and funding, the NP is on a campaign to demonstrate why it should be not only retained but expanded and strengthened. Its leaders say the NP is stamping out incompetence and corruption in its ranks and proving its mettle on the battlefield, pointing to successful counterinsurgency offensives in places like Basra, Sadr City and Mosul, where it fought alongside the army and mostly stood its ground, unlike hundreds of local cops who deserted their posts and even handed over their weapons to the enemy. "Mother of Two Springs has proved how professional and effective the National Police are," says Staff Maj. Gen. Hussein Jasim Mohammed Al-Awadi, the organization's top cop, in a reference to the recent operation to clean up the northern city of Mosul.

Awadi, a slight, easygoing man who vaguely resembles legendary movie bad guy Jack Palance, has a penchant for pithy remarks. In a late-night interview with NEWSWEEK in his Mosul office, the chain-smoking workaholic asserts that the NP routed the insurgents there. "They were scared as rats and they mostly gave up," he says with a chuckle. But success has been costly. The NP, whose membership totals a little more than 35,000—compared with more than 300,000 in the Iraqi Police Service and 240,000 in the army—has seen 1,650 of its officers killed in action and 3,000 wounded around the country in the last four years.

Awadi's goals for his young force, which was established in August 2004, include more equipment, weapons and aircraft. He deflects questions about expanding its size—its two divisions will become three by year's end, with a complement of at least 40,000—by saying he stresses quality over numbers. The NP, he says, must improve its intelligence gathering and investigative abilities and raise its overall competence. "Through this year we will not get all we need, but certainly our forces will be stronger," he says. "But we still have challenges."

Not the least of those will be negotiating the political minefield of a government still riven by sectarian competition and interministerial skirmishing. Although both police services are Ministry of Interior stablemates, the IPS is loath to be superseded by the NP, which was founded after the American invasion to provide a rapid-response force to fight insurgency, riots and civil disobedience. It does not help that the average salary for the NP is about $600 a month, versus about $530 for the IPS.