U.S. tries to improve Iraq security forces

Published 9:00 pm Monday, August 14, 2006

BAGHDAD, Iraq – U.S. military officials Monday unveiled a plan to combat chronic problems with renegade Iraqi security forces by creating Iraqi-led inspection boards and standardized uniforms.

The boards will conduct battalion-level reviews of police leadership and accountability systems, said Maj. Gen. Joe Peterson, the top U.S. police trainer in Iraq. Battalions will be judged on how well they can track weapons and vehicles – a response to widespread diversion of equipment for criminal activities.

U.S. officials hope that distinctive new uniforms and standardized vehicle markings will make it harder for police to run afoul of the law, or for criminals to impersonate police, Peterson said. Iraq’s police forces have been accused of operating death squads and kidnapping rings under the color of law.

Peterson acknowledged that the new plan would leave large security forces unaccountable, including the 140,000-strong Facilities Protection Service, which is assigned to Iraq’s governmental institutions. Those officers wear uniforms and drive vehicles similar to Interior Ministry forces, but are unaccountable to the police, the army or the U.S. military.

Meanwhile, a deadly series of explosions in a Shiite neighborhood of Baghdad triggered a new battle Monday, between the U.S. military and the Iraqis over what caused the blasts. The number of casualties also was in dispute.

A U.S. military spokesman blamed the Sunday evening explosions in Zafraniyah on a gas line explosion that he said triggered secondary blasts and devastated the working class district on the southeastern edge of the city.

But Iraqi police and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said the neighborhood was hit by car bombs and a rocket barrage, which the Interior Ministry said was unleashed from a Sunni neighborhood that U.S. troops have targeted in their security crackdown.

It was impossible to determine who was right.

It also was not possible to determine an accurate death toll. Figures from different Iraqi government factions stated 27, 47 or 76 people were killed.

At least 13 other people were killed Monday in shootings and bombings across Iraq, including three metal workers shot by gunmen in the northern city of Mosul.

In Ramadi, where Marines are staging a major cordon operation, Iraqi residents said they saw a roadside bomb destroy an American Humvee. Four U.S. soldiers died in a firefight that followed the explosion, residents said. The U.S. military would not confirm that report.