IraqBy Steven Vincent
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n May, the city’s police chief told a British newspaper that half of his 7,000-man force was affiliated with religious parties. This may have been an optimistic estimate: one young Iraqi officer told me that “75 per cent of the policemen I know are with Moqtada al-Sadr — he is a great man”. And unfortunately, the British seem unable or unwilling to do anything about it.
The fact that the British are in effect strengthening the hand of Shia organisations is not lost on Basra’s residents.
“No one trusts the police,” one Iraqi journalist told me. “If our new ayatollahs snap their fingers, thousands of police will jump.” Mufeed al-Mushashaee, the leader of a liberal political organisation called the Shabanea Rebellion, told me that he felt that “the entire force should be dissolved and replaced with people educated in human rights and democracy”.
Unfortunately, this is precisely what the British aren’t doing. Fearing to appear like colonial occupiers, they avoid any hint of ideological indoctrination: in my time with them, not once did I see an instructor explain such basics of democracy as the politically neutral role of the police in a civil society. Nor did I see anyone question the alarming number of religious posters on the walls of Basran police stations. When I asked British troops if the security sector reform strategy included measures to encourage cadets to identify with the national government rather than their neighborhood mosque, I received polite shrugs: not our job, mate.
Times OnLine
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