US embassy cable - 03KUWAIT2102

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 05 KUWAIT 002102 
 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE ALSO PASS USAID/W 
STATE PLEASE REPEAT TO IO COLLECTIVE 
STATE FOR PRM/ANE, EUR/SE, NEA/NGA, IO AND SA/PAB 
NSC FOR EABRAMS, SMCCORMICK, STAHIR-KHELI, JDWORKEN 
USAID FOR USAID/A, DCHA/AA, DCHA/RMT, DCHA/FFP 
USAID FOR DCHA/OTI, DCHA/DG, ANE/AA 
USAID FOR DCHA/OFDA:WGARVELINK, BMCCONNELL, KFARNSWORTH 
USAID FOR ANE/AA:WCHAMBERLIN 
ROME FOR FODAG 
GENEVA FOR RMA AND NKYLOH 
DOHA FOR MSHIRLEY 
ANKARA FOR AMB WRPEARSON, ECON AJSIROTIC AND DART 
AMMAN FOR USAID AND DART 
 
E.O. 12958:  N/A 
TAGS: EAID, PREF, IZ, WFP 
SUBJECT: POLICING AND SECURITY IN SOUTHERN IRAQ 
 
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SUMMARY 
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1.  The primary concern for Iraqis throughout the southern 
region continues to be security.  The security situation is 
improving gradually due to the efforts of Coalition forces 
to establish new Iraqi police forces, but much work remains. 
The lack of adequate resources or clear guidelines for local 
units managing policing initiatives has led to great 
inconsistency in the structures and activities in each city 
or town.  In An Nasiriyah former police officers within 
Coalition units are recruiting a local police force drawn 
mostly from former police and limited in size by the ability 
of Coalition patrols to monitor the activities of local 
police.  In Basrah, Coalition military police (MP) are 
conducting joint patrols with unarmed local recruits that 
have little to no police training.  In Al Amarah, Coalition 
MPs are using a similar model as in Basrah with additional 
security provided by two local Marsh Arab militias. In other 
towns, local leaders have declined offers of assistance from 
Coalition forces and are self-policing.  The success of 
local policing initiatives is dependent on the development 
of an adequate legal system to provide the rules under which 
police may function.  If civil unrest is to be avoided, 
these stopgap measures must be followed quickly by more 
systematic management of local security and justice issues 
that builds on local initiatives already in place.  End 
Summary. 
 
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POLICING IN AN NASIRIYAH 
------------------------ 
 
2.  The original police force in An Nasiriyah (including 
traffic police) was close to 3,000 people.  Through 
conversations with re-recruited police, Coalition forces 
have concluded that policing was a default profession for 
many men who could not find other jobs.  As of 2 May, the 
new police force was comprised of approximately 300 men who 
were registered and accepted by the Coalition in conjunction 
with the town council to serve as policemen.  They were 
still unarmed, but Coalition forces had plans to arm the 
police once they felt more comfortable with the recruits 
they had selected.  Many more men wanted to register but 
Coalition forces did not have the capacity to monitor a 
larger group.  The Coalition was slowly trying to vet the 
new recruits through interviews and other checks against 
intelligence information.  Several former policemen serving 
with the Coalition forces controlling the town volunteered 
to help with the recruitment and training of this police 
force.  Though policing was not their primary 
responsibility, these former police stepped in as the 
driving force behind the reactivation of local policing in 
An Nasiriyah. 
 
3.  One Coalition officer reported that his troops 
conducting patrols in the town were spread very thin.  He 
said that his one battalion was covering an area that would 
normally be controlled by three battalions.  The four 
companies within his battalion were each assigned a section 
of the town to patrol every two hours.  House to house 
searches for weapons were completed and many weapons were 
confiscated and destroyed.  However, many private citizens 
still have guns. 
 
4.  While Coalition patrols had not been fired upon in the 
last weeks of April, they reported continued shooting among 
the local population.  The shooting appeared to be isolated, 
and Coalition forces attributed it to low-level crime or 
"score-settling" between individuals or families.  Citizens 
reported incidents to Coalition forces either on patrol or 
at the police station.  For example, on 1 May, a woman came 
to the police station and reported that four days prior, 
seven men entered her home at night and shot her husband and 
son.  Both men had returned from hospital and were 
recovering from their bullet wounds.  She gave Coalition 
forces a list of individuals she thought were responsible, 
and it included two of the newly recruited police. 
Coalition forces are investigating this particular incident, 
but this illustrates the problem of recourse for victims 
against police or other authority figures once the Coalition 
forces pull out. 
 
5.  The scope of the violence remains limited in An 
Nasiriyah to individual incidents and has not become 
widespread between larger groups within the town.  However, 
the number of incident reports received from the population 
and the general level of fear in the town increased over the 
three days prior to the DART visit on 2 May.  This increase 
corresponded to the release of approximately 100 enemy 
prisoners of war (EPWs) into An Nasiriyah each day over the 
previous three days.  Though unable to confirm whether the 
release of EPWs back into the town was the cause of the 
increased fear among the population, Coalition forces are 
concerned that some of the newly released EPWs were trying 
to reinsert themselves in the town through fear.  While the 
population continues to be reassured by their presence, 
Coalition forces are concerned about a security vacuum when 
they leave in a few months. 
 
6.  Local leaders in the smaller towns around An Nasiriyah 
have told Coalition forces that they want to police 
themselves.  When offered assistance in policing, local 
leaders have refused the assistance and said they prefer to 
handle community security on their own.  These small towns 
are reportedly "taking care of" the local Fedayeen 
themselves as well. 
 
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POLICING IN BASRAH 
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7.  There were 6,000 police officers in Basrah before the 
conflict.   After the serious and widespread looting 
throughout Basrah toward the end of April, the Coalition 
military police (MPs) began an initiative to recruit and 
train a new local police force.  They have compiled a 
database of over 2,000 names of applicants.  The Coalition 
is validating individuals through a system of intelligence 
checks and interviews with the applicants and others in the 
town.  They are beginning to further organize the force into 
units with approximately 700 regular police participating in 
joint patrols with the Coalition MPs and troops as on-the- 
job training.  On 10 May, 460 traffic police joined a 500- 
person "guard" force to protect important stationary 
infrastructure.  In addition to the police force, the 
Coalition MPs have begun a licensing process for private 
security guards.  There are now four police stations open in 
Basrah city and three others in surrounding areas. 
 
8.  Applicants to the police force are a mixture of former 
police and new recruits.  While the majority are former 
police, the higher-level officers in the former force have 
disappeared and the returning recruits are from the lower 
levels and often had jobs not directly related to policing. 
The Coalition MP providing the description of the training 
initiative to the DART said the former police force had many 
drivers, administrators, and cleaners, but very few 
employees actually involved in proper police responses and 
investigations.  Therefore, most of the recruits, whether 
new recruits or former police, need basic police training. 
Recruits are participating in joint patrols with the 
Coalition troops and MPs for on-the-job training but the 
Coalition is still controlling and monitoring all activities 
closely.  The MPs also have put together mobile training 
teams that visit the various stations and train 
approximately 20 people at a time in basic rules of 
evidence, use of force, etc.  They also have plans for a 
police academy that can train and professionalize the new 
police force more formally, but they have not yet identified 
funding for this initiative. 
 
9.  The primary challenge to the training of new police is 
the lack of a basic legal system to regulate the police 
procedures.  The lack of a legal system with judges and due 
process in place also presents challenges to the ability of 
the Coalition forces and local police to detain or process 
criminals.  For now, low-level criminals such as petty 
looters are arrested, warned and released.  If they find 
repeat offenders, they keep them longer but still have no 
means to process these individuals.  Coalition forces are 
detaining perpetrators of 13 types of serious crime such as 
rape or murder, and sending them down to the EPW camp in Umm 
Qasr because there is nowhere locally to detain them. 
Reportedly, about 150 such detentions have taken place under 
Coalition authority. 
 
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POLICING IN AL AMARAH 
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10.  The policing efforts in Al Amarah are following the 
same model as in Basrah with one interesting difference. 
Residents of Al Amarah are very proud to refer to themselves 
as "self-liberated" since they expelled most of the Baath 
Party before the arrival of any Coalition forces.  The chief 
of police, a former Baath Party member, changed sides to 
join those opposing the regime just a few days before this 
self-liberation took place.  He is still the chief of 
police, and most of the existing local police force stayed 
in place wearing the same uniforms as before the conflict 
began.  Two powerful Marsh Arab leaders from the 1991 
uprising also have re-emerged with their own local militias, 
which participated in this "self-liberation" and are now are 
helping to patrol and secure the town.  Local leaders, 
including the militias, have accepted Coalition oversight, 
and Coalition forces have told them that there is no place 
in Iraq for militias in the future.  For now though, these 
armed militias that wear civilian clothes are helping with 
security by manning checkpoints and providing an expanded 
security coverage in the town.  As a result, Al Amarah has 
had fewer problems with security and crime than other 
places.  Looting and damage to government buildings was 
limited to about two days before coalition forces arrived. 
 
11.  There may be troubling long-term implications, however, 
of relying on a militia to supplement the joint patrols by 
Coalition troops and civilian police.  It may be difficult 
to get the militias to give up power.  In Al Amarah a new 
local judicial structure is well on the way to establishment 
by local lawyers that have elected new judges.  They have 
issued proclamations on their desires for a new justice 
system in that Governorate.  If supported and strengthened, 
this local initiative appears to have the potential to 
create checks on power consolidation in the town.  The 
judges and lawyers are awaiting authorization and legitimacy 
to be granted for their proposed system from the Office of 
Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance (ORHA) in 
Baghdad.  Details on this emerging legal structure will be 
reported via septel. 
 
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PAYMENT OF POLICE AND OTHER CIVIL SERVANTS IN THE SOUTH 
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12.  Another critical need related to the new local police 
forces is the payment of salaries.  Along with all civil 
servants, new police are eager to receive their salaries. 
Due to the delay in getting a national scheme for the 
payment of civil servants in place, Coalition forces are 
trying to solve the problem.  In An Nasiriyah, the new town 
council identified state money in a local bank that they 
authorized the Coalition to use to pay salaries of 
approximately 50,000 civil servants in the governorate. 
They were using a pay scale of USD 10 equivalent for 
unskilled labor, USD 15 for skilled labor, and a maximum of 
USD 22 for managerial positions.  The exchange rate used was 
1400 Iraqi dinar per dollar.  The police were the first of 
the civil servants to be paid in early May.  Coalition 
forces estimated they had enough Iraqi dinars to pay two 
months' worth of salaries for all the civil servants in the 
Governorate.  They turned money over to the heads of 
individual departments for dispersement to their staff. 
Similarly Coalition forces have identified local cash 
reserves in banks and used them to pay initial salaries to 
police in Basrah. 
 
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CONCLUSION 
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13.  Important issues related to providing needed security 
in Iraq including policing, paying civil servant salaries, 
protecting sensitive documents and physical evidence, 
developing local judicial structures, and rebuilding social 
infrastructure are being addressed through the creative 
efforts of local units of the Coalition, non-governmental 
organizations (NGOs), and emerging local Iraqi leadership. 
While these initiatives are addressing the most pressing 
needs for now, none are adequate or sustainable over the 
medium- to long-term without support.  The legal parameters 
developing in the broader system in Baghdad should be 
communicated to the military units and local leaders in the 
various Governorates working on policing and local justice. 
Such guidance should encourage these emerging local 
initiatives in the right direction toward a locally driven, 
yet consistent system of security and justice for the new 
Iraq. 
 
JONES