Inquiry suggests graft, brutality are rife in Iraq
BAGHDAD -- Brutality and corruption are rampant in Iraq's police force, with abuses including the rape of female prisoners, the release of terrorism suspects in exchange for bribes, and participation in insurgent bombings, according to confidential Iraqi government documents detailing more than 400 police corruption investigations.
A recent assessment by State Department police-training contractors underscores the investigative documents, concluding that strong paramilitary and insurgent influences within the force and endemic corruption have undermined public confidence in the government.
Officers have also beaten prisoners to death, been involved in kidnapping rings, sold thousands of stolen and forged Iraqi passports, and passed along vital information to insurgents, the Iraqi documents allege.
The documents, which cover most of 2005 and part of this year , were authenticated by current and former police officials. The alleged offenses span dozens of police units and hundreds of officers from beat cops to generals and police chiefs. Officers were punished in some instances, but the vast majority of cases are either under investigation or were dropped because of lack of evidence or witness testimony.
The investigation documents are the latest in a string of disturbing revelations of abuse and corruption by Iraq's Interior Ministry, a Cabinet-level agency that employs 268,610 police, immigration, facilities security, and dignitary protection officers.
After the discovery in November of a secret Interior Ministry detention facility in Baghdad operated by police intelligence officials affiliated with a Shi'ite Muslim militia, US officials declared 2006 ``the year of the police." They vowed a renewed effort to expand and professionalize Iraq's civilian officer corps.
President Bush has said that the training of a competent Iraqi police force is linked to the timing of an eventual withdrawal of US troops and a key element in the war in Iraq.
But US officials say the renegade force in the ministry's intelligence service that ran the bunker in Baghdad's Jadiriya neighborhood continues to operate out of the Interior Ministry . A senior US military official in Iraq, who was interviewed last month on condition of anonymity, confirmed that one of the leaders of the renegade group, Mahmoud al-Waeli, is the ``minister of intelligence for the Badr Corps" Shi'ite militia and a main recruiter of paramilitary elements for interior police forces.
``We're gradually working the process to take them out of the equation," the military official said. ``We developed the information. We also developed a prosecutorial case."
Bayan Jabr, a prominent Shi'ite, was interior minister at the time of the investigations detailed in the documents and has been accused of allowing Shi'ite paramilitary fighters to run rampant in the security forces under his watch.
US officials interviewed said the ability of Jabr's replacement, Jawad Bolani, to deal with the pervasive corruption and militia influence in the police will be a crucial test of his leadership.
The challenges facing Bolani, a Shi'ite engineer who has no policing experience and who entered politics for the first time after the US-led invasion of 2003, are highlighted in a recent assessment by police trainers hired by the State Department. According to that report, corruption in the Interior Ministry has hampered its effectiveness and its credibility with Iraqis.
``Despite great progress and genuine commitment on the part of many ministry officials, the current climate of corruption, human rights violations, and sectarian violence found in Iraq's security forces undermines public confidence," according to the document, titled ``Year of the Police In-Stride Assessment, October 2005 to May 2006."
``Elements of the MOI [Ministry of the Interior] have been co-opted by insurgents, terrorists, and sectarian militias. Payroll fraud, other kinds of corruption, and intimidation campaigns by insurgent and militia organizations undermine police effectiveness in key cities throughout Iraq," the report says.
The report increased tensions between the Pentagon, which runs the police training program, and the State Department, which has been pushing to expand its limited training role in Iraq, said a US official who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The report strikes contradictory tones, saying that the Interior Ministry continues to improve and that its forces are on track to take over civil security from US and Iraqi military elements by the end of the year, while outlining shocking problems with corruption and abuse.
Interior officials have taken steps to ``improve detainee life," the report said. ``However, there are elements within the MOI which continue to abuse detainees."
The report's findings are borne out in hundreds of pages of internal investigative documents.
The documents include worksheets with hundreds of short summaries of alleged crimes by police, letters referring accused officers to Iraq's anticorruption agencies and courts, citizen complaints of police abuse and corruption, police inspector general summaries detailing financial crimes, and fraudulent contracting practices and reports on alleged sympathizers of Saddam Hussein's former regime.
