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...Other Negative Factors
The effectiveness of the IPs is almost totally contingent upon strong leadership, and Fallujan PD leadership is poor to inconsistent, directly responsible for the lack of an offensive posture in the city. In addition, corruption and administrative incompetence among local leaders and the bureaucrats at the Ministry of the Interior in Baghdad severely hamper effectiveness. The Marines are trying to work with these flaws, but the current American disengagement strategy ties the PiTT's hands. The impotence of the advisory role is possibly the single biggest impediment to mission success.
"I think ... if this is the key to eventually sending everybody home, to stand up the Iraqi Army and Iraqi police, then right now they're doing a pretty good job with the Iraqi Army, but the Iraqi police are not where they should be right now. We need to pour more resources into the problem. Not supplies - we've given the them all that they need to succeed - rather, right now we need more advisors to come out here and more interpreters. Without them we can't get anything done," said Lippo.
"I also think we need a larger role in hiring and firing the leadership here. We're letting the Iraqis do it all and we're not at that stage yet. The Americans need to take more of a leadership role in running the police department here instead of sitting back and letting the Iraqis do it."
IPpost.jpg
An IP guard post.
Positive Factors
Though they apparently lack the security and initiative required to conduct regular patrols, the Fallujan cops are still considered brave and resilient in the face of intimidation and violence. IPs are regularly shot or blown up both on the street as well as in and around the guard posts manning the perimeter of the stations. Some cops quit after being injured, but many return to work, often after remarkably short recovery periods. One can levy many criticisms of the Fallujan officers, but lack of toughness isn't one of them.
"Would people back home come back to work the next day after being shot in the head?" asks Gorman. "If we faced what these guys face back in the states, it would be a national crisis. And they do it every day, so there is a lot to be said for that."
In addition, as locals, they know the city and are thus uniquely capable of cultivating intelligence that will root out the insurgency. It's believed that if and when the Iraqi government and American forces can win over the local populace and the tribes to choose sides and actively fight the insurgents, the police will be the security outlet that benefits most from the support and added manpower.
Finally, a series of successful raids by the SMG in conjunction with the Iraqi Army have recently led to a surprising level of cooperation between the Fallujan cops and the soldiers, two groups that mistrust each other because of the Army's status as outsiders and the traditionally lower status of the cops in Iraqi civil service. Whether this esprit de corps will last is anyone's guess, but it's a good sign, as this cooperation is considered a requisite to securing the city....
And about disarming the army and starting over was to retrain forces and to mentally re-group that is a practice used for thousands of years.
Iraq was just waiting to boil over before we went in there and if you watched the news you'd also know the very same thing was done in Bosnia with regards to news and TV and radio stations.
