NYT: Misjudgments Marred U.S. Plans for Iraqi Police

[gristy]

Detailed article in today's NY Times
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x211884

As chaos swept Iraq after the American invasion in 2003, the Pentagon began its effort to rebuild the Iraqi police with a mere dozen advisers. Overmatched from the start, one was sent to train a 4,000-officer unit to guard power plants and other utilities. A second to advise 500 commanders in Baghdad. Another to organize a border patrol for the entire country.
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What attempts there were to train the police were marred by poor coordination, civilian and military officials said. During the first two years of the war, three different government groups developed three different plans to train Iraq's police, all without knowing of the existence of the other.
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"Looking back, I really don't know what their plan was," Mr. Kerik said. With no experience in Iraq, and little time to get ready, he said he prepared for his job in part by watching A&E Network documentaries on Saddam Hussein.
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Three years later, the police are a battered and dysfunctional force that has helped bring Iraq to the brink of civil war. Police units stand accused of operating death squads for powerful political groups or simple profit. Citizens, deeply distrustful of the force, are setting up their own neighborhood security squads. Killings of police officers are rampant, with at least 547 slain this year, roughly as many as Iraqi and American soldiers combined, records show.
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Col. Muhammad Raghab Fahmy, a police commander in Baghdad, said the police struggled to perform the most basic duties. "They need weapons," he said, and they need to learn "how to use their vehicles, how to operate a checkpoint, writing skills and how to react when being attacked."
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