12.1 |
Security Sector Reform
“But I
think that the degree of the problem, just recalling another sense
of the time,
is that
we could pour significant resource into … training the police and
in the
quantity of
their generation but we never had the ability to command their
loyalty at
a local
level or a national level.
“This is
where you probably get into the dark business of the degree to
which police
loyalties
were affected by political loyalties, links to criminality and
corruption, and
I don’t
think that we had a full understanding of that at the back end of
2005. That
was more
revealed to us incrementally, as 2006 ensued.”738
797.
In his weekly
report of 1 January 2006, DCC Smith wrote about the “Year
of
the
Police”: “… the strap line that ‘just enough is good enough’ is,
whilst probably
realistic,
not particularly encouraging”. He wrote that it could be “a
defining factor in
the development
of an effective Iraqi Police Service”.739
The
Department of Border Enforcement (DBE) was established in
2003.740
A report
to
Congress on
7 March 2008 described the DBE as having two key
missions:
•
Ports of Entry
(POE) policing to ensure the smooth transition of legal goods
and
persons;
and
•
to interdict
illegal traffic – including smuggling and movement of terrorists
and foreign
fighters –
within and between POE.
Securing
Iraq’s border was a considerable task – in total Iraq has 2,268
miles of land
border and
36 miles of coastline.741
In June
2004, Maj Gen Houghton described the DBE as “successfully
… reconstituted
with over
19,000 Iraqis now in roles as border police, customs officers,
immigration
officers
and nationality and passport officers”.742
The first
border police graduated in September 2004, after receiving training
in Jordan.743
AM Torpy
visited Iraq from 13 to 19 February 2005.744
On DBE, he
commented:
“The DBE in
MND(SE) has advanced considerably since my last visit and are now
an
effective
force, with a good system of refurbished forts along the Iranian,
Kuwaiti and
Saudi
borders.”
738
Public
hearing, 5 January 2010, pages 12‑13.
739
Minute
Smith, 1 January 2006, ‘UK Chief Police Advisor – Iraq: Weekly
Report: Week Ending Sunday
1st
Jan
2006’.
740
Report to
Congress, 7 March 2008, Measuring
Stability and Security in Iraq.
741
Report, 6
September 2007, ‘Independent Commission on the Security Forces in
Iraq’.
742
Minute
ACDS(Ops) to Rycroft, June 2004, ‘How Best to Progress the
Iraqiisation of the
Security Sector’.
743
Wright DP
& Reese TR. On Point
II: Transition to the New Campaign – The United States Army
in
Operation
IRAQI FREEDOM May 2003 – January 2005. Combined
Studies Institute Press, June 2008.
744
Minute CJO
to CDS, 22 February 2005, ‘CJO Visit Report – Iraq – 13 to 19 Feb
05’.
235