Iraq: Police in Baghdad's Yarmouk police station took off their Iraqi police uniforms yesterday saying that they would not submit to orders to wage a "counter-terrorism war" against opponents of US rule.
"How can I arrest an Iraqi whose brother has been killed or whose house has been bulldozed by the occupier?" asked one policeman, who wished not to be named.
He was wearing civilian clothes and said he had graduated from Baghdad's US-run police academy only last week.
His colleagues in Yarmouk, most of them former Iraqi soldiers, said the US efforts to suppress a nationwide insurgency have now deterred them from serving the US-led coalition.
"How can they teach us democracy and human rights, and then violate the Geneva Conventions against Iraqis in Falluja?" asked the man, referring to the scene of the most bloody clashes to have occurred in Iraq since the end of the war just over a year ago.
Coalition officials have expressed concern at the shifting loyalties of Iraqi policemen and security troops in the country-wide insurrection which began earlier this month.
The Iraqi forces, lacking training and essential equipment such as heavy weapons, body armour and radios, have been easily intimidated by guerrilla groups into not fighting. In many cases the police have appeared overtly sympathetic with anti-coalition guerrillas.
On Sunday, Lieut Gen Ricardo Sanchez, commander of coalition forces in Iraq, admitted that a battalion of the Iraqi Civil Defence Corps (ICDC) had refused to fight in Falluja last week, alongside US marines who were trying to retake control of the town.
US ground commanders have been openly suspicious of police and civil defence forces since they were first introduced in Iraq last year.
Many had only a week's training, and were given just one magazine of ammunition apiece for their rifles. This was due either to shortage of supplies or to doubts over their loyalties.
Iraqi security troops often had to wear masks over their faces to avoid being recognised by the local populace.
Gen Charles Swannack, commander of the 82nd Airborne Division which controlled Falluja until March, was bitterly critical in a press conference on March 10th of the coalition's failure to supply police and civil defence units with basic equipment such as radios.
If Iraqi security forces now return to work in areas of the country that have seen bloodshed over the last week it seems to be only with the agreement of militants battling the US-led occupation.
In the southern city of Najaf, Iraqi police were yesterday reported to have reoccupied their headquarters but only after they had reached agreement with supporters of the militant Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.
In Sadr City, a massive Shia suburb of Baghdad, police were once again on the streets but only with the agreement of Mr Sadr's militiamen, residents said.
It is little surprise that policemen and others serving with the Iraqi civil defence corps are nervous. In a series of horrific bomb attacks since last summer, police stations have borne the brunt of much of the violent opposition to the US-led occupation.
A poster in the headquarters of Baghdad's criminal investigation department helpfully identifies the "lethal blast range" and the "maximum explosive capacity" of various types of vehicles.
Police buildings in Iraq are generally guarded by several layers of the ubiquitous concrete barriers that ring Iraq's security facilities known locally as "Bremer's walls", named after Paul Bremer, the US administrator of Iraq.
Emissaries from the US- appointed Governing Council, mediating an end to the uprising, have focused on restoring the police force.
But last week, Mr Nouri Badran, the interior minister responsible for restoring the police force, resigned saying it was at Mr Bremer's request.
Mr Bremer's new appointee is Mr Samir Sumaidai, a Sunni member of the Governing Council with ancestral ties to Falluja. But it is unclear whether Mr Sumaidai will succeed in winning the confidence of the police and Iraqi security forces there.
- (Financial Times)