How anAmerican-created’protection service’became the mainsource of deathsquads in Iraq.
Iraq’s ‘Protection Service’ Source Of Death SquadsBy Cliff MontgomeryIraq’s Facilities Protection Service (FPS), created after the 2003 invasion of Iraq, has become the principal source of death squads in the war-torn country, say senior leaders.”The first accomplishment of Paul Bremer (former U.S. administrator in Iraq)…was dissolving the Iraqi army and all security establishments,” a consultant with an Iraqi ministry told Inter Press Service (IPS) on condition of anonymity.”The man [Bremer] was granted the highest decoration by his President for a job well done.”Many experts now say that dismantling Iraq’s functioning army helped ensure that any U.S. military stay would be a long and bloody one.The U.S. occupation authorities and their few Iraqi comrades worked to set up a new army and new police forces under the supervision of the Multi National Forces (MNF). It was decided that each ministry would be allowed to establish its own protection force free from the control of the ministries of interior and defense. In other words, each minister would in many ways have his or her own private army.But the forces were made ‘private’ in a whole other way as well.The Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) established the FPS on April 10, 2003, the day after the fall of Baghdad. But the small print in the document creating these forces held an interesting gem:”The FPS may also consist of employees of private security firms who are engaged to perform services for the ministries or governorates through contracts, provided such private security firms and employees are licensed and authorized by the Ministry of Interior.”GlobalSecurity.Org, a U.S. based security research group, has stated what this law was supposed to provide on its website.”The Facilities Protection Service works for all ministries and governmental agencies, but its standards are set and enforced by the Ministry of the Interior. It can also be privately hired. The FPS is tasked with the fixed site protection of ministerial, governmental, or private buildings, facilities and personnel.”The security website adds: “The majority of the FPS staff consists of former service members and former security guards. The FPS will now secure public facilities such as hospitals, banks and power stations within their district. Once trained, the guards work with U.S. military forces protecting critical sites like schools, hospitals and power plants.”But General Harith al-Fahad of the former Iraqi army disagrees with this rosy scenario.”All the forces formed were actually militias, not organized forces, because they were formed according to rations given to each party in power,” al-Fahad told IPS at a Baghdad café, as explosions echoed in the background.”Those politicians brought their followers into the so-called security forces. Others took bribes of 500 to 700 dollars from each applicant to be accepted, regardless of standard regulations.”Though sectarian violence has grown almost from the day Americans set foot in Iraq, al-Fahad said things got worse across the country after the Shia shrine in Samarra was destroyed in February of this year.”The FPS appeared to be the main force that conducted assassinations in Baghdad, and there is evidence that they did it for money.”If this is so, it’s a continuing trend. U.S. officers training Iraqi police told reporters last week that the problem of militia members in police units could delay the American handover of Iraq‘s security forces for years.”How can we expect ordinary Iraqis to trust the police when we don’t even trust them not to kill our own men?” questioned Capt. Alexander Shaw. Shaw is head of the police transition team of the 372nd Military Police Battalion, a Washington-based unit charged with overseeing the training of Iraqi police forces in western Baghdad.”To be perfectly honest, I’m not sure we’re ever going to have police here that are free of the militia influence,” he added.Shaw also told IPS that about 70 percent of the Iraqi police force has been infiltrated, and police officers are now too afraid to patrol many areas of the capital.Most of the infiltration appears to be coming from the two largest Shia militias: the Badr Organization–the armed wing of the pro-Iranian Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq–and the Mehdi Army, the militia of the Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.The outcome of all this only adds to the hell that has become every Iraqi’s daily existence. Dr. Nameer Hadi recently left his post at a major Baghdad hospital because he felt threatened by the FPS.”I saw them kill in cold blood a lady patient when they learned that she was the wife of a Sunni tribe leader,” Dr. Hadi told IPS.”I am a Shia believer, but this kind of crime is unbearable.”
