Iraq Suspends an Entire Brigade of Police

The London Times Online reported today that Iraq has suspended a brigade of the National Police in Baghdad.

AN ENTIRE police brigade in Baghdad has been suspended and its commander placed under arrest on charges of aiding sectarian death squads that have carried out mass kidnappings.

The Eighth Brigade of the 2nd National Police Battalion, which has more than 800 uniformed officers in western Baghdad, was stepped down a day after armed men in official uniforms herded off 14 shopkeepers from central Baghdad, and two days after 24 workers were abducted from a meat processing plant in the capital.

“The brigade’s past performance does not demonstrate the level of professionalism sought by the Ministry of the Interior,” Major General William Caldwell said. “It was realised that removing them would, in fact, enhance security.

“There was clear evidence that there was some complicity in allowing death squad elements to move freely, when in fact they were supposed to be impeding their movement.

“The forces in the unit have not put their full allegiance to the Government of Iraq and gave their allegiance to others.”

The disgraced brigade will be sent for retraining by American forces, although one US trainer said the programme had been scheduled months ago as part of a sweeping overhaul of Iraq’s police forces, which were hastily recruited after the 2003 invasion and which have frequently proved inadequate for the task of eradicating violence.

This is definitely encouraging news. That the Iraqi government is taking action to clean its own house is a good sign, and it will go a long way toward building more Iraqi confidence in their government.

A recent poll of Iraqis revealed that 61% of them favored attacks on US troops, and a Lefty friend-of-a-friend sent an email touting that number as the reason we should just pull out of Iraq now. But he ignored the part that showed Iraqis overwhelmingly disapprove of al Qaeda (77% of Sunnis and almost 100% of the rest). He and I email-argued back and forth, and then I finished with this assessment, which apparently shut him up:

Overall, the Iraqis' main concern seems to be their worry that we won't leave when they want us to, and that worry is fueling the bad numbers over the US's presence there. They're not upset and claiming that we're screwing them over or that we're beating them up or mistreating them. They're not mad enough about our presence to turn them to al Qaeda to try to make us go away. This is just a crappy time of impatience while we try to finish the job at hand (training and rebuilding, and killing terrorists), so we can come home. Which we will.

But you want to turn myopic and shout with glee at the slightest bit of bad polling results, while you ignore the encouraging results and the overall picture. I'm dismayed that 61% of Iraqis think attacks on the US are OK, but I'm not short-sighted enough the ignore the goal and to figure instead that the results of one poll (funded and conducted by a group of left-wing organizations) is the same thing as abject failure. There's no way one poll with some (not all) bad results is a mandate to cut and run and leave Iraq to the terrorists.

The more the Iraqis take the lead in running and policing their country, and the more the US steps back and lets the Iraqis lead, the better the attitude of the Iraqi people will be. The suspension of this rogue Police brigade brings us one step closer to the day our troops will be able to come home.