12.1 |
Security Sector Reform
1234.
In August
2006, ACC Barton produced an assessment of the situation
in
MND(SE).1154
He
highlighted that:
•
Although
the UK had “trained and trained the lower echelons of the IPS and
…
equipped
them to a reasonable standard”, they had not created a police
force.
•
Training
should have been top down rather than bottom up.
•
The
equipment supplied by the UK “provided technological solutions way
above
the local
need – smartboards and complex computer systems which get
stolen
(by the
police) or can’t be used due to lack of power. What they need (and
like)
is desks,
pens, ledgers and stationery”.
•
A basic
level of corruption was endemic to Iraqi society but the current
level
wasn’t
“‘hand in the till’ activity”; the SCU was “synonymous with
killings, torture
and
abuse”.
1235.
ACC Barton
advocated further UK pressure to encourage the MOI to
purge
employees,
mentioning a recent purge of MOI employees (including IPS) in which
there
were “86
convicted murderers, 345 with bribery convictions, rapists,
kidnappers, and
even two
IPS who were supposed to have been executed in the 90s but were
alive and
working in
Baghdad!”
1236.
ACC Barton
described the Tactical Support Unit (TSU) and the confidential
TIPS
hotline as
successes but added that there was a “woeful lack of command and
control
skills by
senior Iraqi Police Officers” and “little public confidence in the
IPS as an entity”.
1237.
Over the
summer of 2006, problems began to surface with the largely
untested
10th
Division.
1238.
On 10 August,
Maj Gen Shirreff reported the murder of a colonel in 10th
Division
and
suggested that the murder might have been motivated by his
“resolute stand against
militia
influence in the IA”.1155
Maj Gen Shirreff
described 10th Division as “not perfect
but it is
the best hope we have for now of an Iraqi solution to the security
problems.
Emerging
signs of increasing politicisation and infiltration within the IA
can only be
bad news.”
1239.
The JIC
considered the security situation in the South on 27
September:
“We judge
that the Iraq Army in the South can cope with the limited threat
posed by
Iraqi Sunni
Arab nationalists and jihadists. But their willingness and ability
to tackle
Shia
militias is doubtful. MNF describe the Iraqi Army’s 10th Division
in MND(SE)
as
“fragile”. Its 10,000 personnel can perform basic tasks (patrols
and static
guard
duties) independently, and it has provided limited support to MNF
counter
1154
Report
Barton, August 2006, ‘The window of opportunity’.
1155
Minute
Shirreff, 10 August 2006, ‘GOC MND(SE) – Southern Iraq Update – 10
August 2006’.
343