Iraq Removes Leaders of Special Police

By Slab

The Iraqi government removed the country’s two most senior police commanders from their posts on Tuesday, in the first broad move against the top leadership of Iraq’s unruly special police forces.
The two generals had led Iraq’s special police commandos and its public order brigade, both widely criticized as being heavily infiltrated by Shiite militias.

An interesting development in the new Iraqi government. Since I only dealt with an infantry battalion from the Iraqi Army, I never had to deal with the complexities of their law enforcement. However, talk of militias and death squads within the police and security forces brings to mind many of the difficulties faced in Latin America, specifically in Colombia. In college, I took a course on Latin American Revolutions, and I chose to focus my research on a similar right wing movement within Colombia, known as the Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (AUC), or United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia.

It is tempting for governments such as Colombia and Iraq to resort to right-wing movements like the AUC to combat determined insurgencies. Right-wing militias are often very successful at killing insurgents and deterring popular support for the insurgency. However, government support for these "paramilitaries", as they are often called in Latin America, basicallly amounts to defeating one devil by selling their soul to another one. In the case of the AUC, they are now considered nearly as great a threat to the Colombian government as the FARC, the left-wing movement that the AUC was created to oppose. The AUC is widely acknowledged to be wrapped up in the international drug trade, as are their principal enemy - the FARC. The leader of the AUC, Carlos Castaño, was indicted by the United States for trafficking over 17 tons of cocaine into the US. He has since been assassinated.

I sincerely hope that the Iraqi government is able to defeat the specter of right-wing militias. On the one hand they may seem to be an effective counter-insurgency tool, but one day they will rise to bite the hand that feeds them and possibly fuel yet another insurgency. The experience of the Colombians should provide ample proof as to the folly of supporting right-wing "death squads".

October 18, 2006 08:17 PM The Long War

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Comments

Latin American revolutions...

Capt Blair, great course.

John · October 18, 2006 10:31 PM

Right Wing paramilitaries can be usefull if trained and organized correctly, unfortunatley this doesen't happen most of the time.

America did it's best with the Contra's, and various tribes in Vietnam and we turned those groups into highly efficent killers, but in some cases they took advantage by using those skills to become no better then the enemy we were using them against.

The AUC is a good example of that.

Some "proxy Armies" never do well. The UDA and UVF in Northern Ireland, (despite training from British forces), were only somewhat succsessful against the superior skills and organization of the IRA. During the early 90's the UDA and UVF killed few actual IRA or Sinn Fein personel, yet the IRA was able to kill dozens of high ranking UDA and UVF members and leaders.

The Cristian Phalange did quite well for a time in the 80's against Hezbollah, thanks to American and Israeli help. Sadly, they fell apart in the 90's and Hezbollah grew in strength and power.

Proxy armies can work, but they take massive oversight, and must be trained and administered to constantly, to keep from becoming terrorists themselves.

Devin Leonard · October 19, 2006 02:12 AM

You see that’s what I always enjoy about Op-for, intelligently deriving lessons from past military history in context with the present.

George · October 19, 2006 04:13 AM

Interesting comparison, but I have to disagree.

The right-wing death squads served some purpose to the advancement or defense of a nation (i.e. "Los Pepes" of Colombia and the role they played in helping to destroy Pablo Escobar's cartel). The death squads within the police forces of Iraq are little more than al-Sadr's thugs. al-Sadr knew, when the gov't was formed, that the key to control of the country was the Ministry of Interior. Tolerating a moderate like al-Maliki as PM allowed al-Sadr to get his own man into the MoI... and it has been very fruitful for him. The National Police (formerly POB) are STACKED with Shi'ia, many of whom are loyal to al-Sadr and the Mahdi Army. This is true to a lesser extent in the Iraqi Police (the local cops).

These death squads are extensions of the Mahdi Army and are loyal to al-Sadr, not Iraq (although there has been debate lately as to the extent of al-Sadr's control of the Mahdi). Their purpose is to punish and/or destroy the Sunnis and to attack Americans. While they may be useful in combating SUNNI insurgent groups, the damage they cause by their wanton killing of Sunnis in general far outweighs their benefit.

I came to learn that when a Nat'l Police officer said the word, "terrorist", he really meant "Sunni".

The situation with the Nat'l Police in Iraq is appaling. The only solution is to eliminate the current Interior Minister, fire all the Nat'l Police, and then rebuild the organization from the ground up under our VERY CLOSE supervision.

Joel · October 19, 2006 05:35 AM