12.1 |
Security Sector Reform
and
equipment husbandry … This leaves the Civil Police and IPAs with:
criminal
intelligence
… serious crime investigation … forensic investigation, [and]
tactical
support
units and SWAT teams.
“Looking to
the future, the original model, which failed in Bosnia and Kosovo,
and
was failing
here, must never be used again. Great Britain must only step
forward to
take the
lead on police reform if our policing model is appropriate to the
problem …
Beat
Bobbies from Hampshire, and even RUC men, concerned with human
rights
and traffic
violations, are of limited use to a paramilitary police force
fighting an
insurgency
… In the future, we should have the courage to decline the lead
where it
is
inappropriate for us … Only professionals – whether soldiers or
policemen – can
produce
professionals.”
881.
In DCC Smith’s
six‑month update on 20 November, he wrote:
“My
greatest concern for the future is co‑ordination with the military
… Senior UK
Military
have almost totally failed to acknowledge the equivalent seniority
of their
Civilian
colleagues. In the UK … we are used to working as part of
multi‑discipline
teams
comprising civil servants, military, professionals from private and
public
sector.
That is what we have become used to. I think the UK Police dot
[sic] it well
with style
and expertise.
“I
sincerely hope that will develop in MND(SE). We must move away from
comments
made by …
[Maj Gen Riley] … to a true partnership.”841
882.
On 28 April
2005, a junior IPU official sent a note to Mr Asquith and
Baroness
Symons
highlighting serious concerns about the links between the Iraqi
police and
the Shia
militia, particularly in southern Iraq.842
There was
an increasing picture of
“systematic
collusion between the Basra Police Intelligence Unit (within the
IPS) and
Shiite
militias to interrogate, torture and murder Sunni prisoners,
particularly suspected
Ba’athists”.
Specifically, the Police Intelligence Unit (PIU)843
based at
the Jameat
police
station in Basra was suspected of abusing and killing an Iraqi
criminal detainee,
Mr Abbas
Allawi.
883.
The junior
official sent advice to Dr Kim Howells, FCO Minister, on 18
May,
recommending
that the UK continued providing assistance to the IPS but “at the
same
841
Paper
Smith, 20 November 2005, ‘Next Steps on Policing –
Review’.
842
Minute IPU
[junior official] to Asquith and PS/Symons, 28 April 2005, ‘Iraq:
Murder and Abuse of
Detainees
in Iraqi Detention Facilities’.
843
Sometimes
referred to as the Police Investigation Unit.
257