Iraq to Purge Corrupt Officers
Commandos may also be
used in a crackdown on insurgents and their allies. The Shiite leaders'
plans are further unsettling Sunnis.
By Patrick J. McDonnell and Solomon Moore
Times Staff Writers
May 1, 2005
BAGHDAD — Iraq's Shiite Muslim leadership, alarmed by a surge in
attacks as the new government prepares to take office, plans to crack
down on Sunni-led insurgents and purge suspected infiltrators and
corrupt officers from the nation's security forces, officials and
lawmakers say.
A likely tactic, authorities say, is unleashing well-trained Iraqi
commandos in Baghdad and other trouble spots. The special forces units
have a reputation for effectiveness and brutality.
Whether additional Iraqi troops can tame an insurgency that has
not withered in the face of massive U.S. military might remains to be
seen. But Shiite leaders express confidence that determined Iraqi
forces, with U.S. backup, can use their superior knowledge of the
culture, language and terrain to gather intelligence, infiltrate cells
and defeat the guerrillas.
The plan for Iraqi commandos' wider deployment is indicative of
how the raging guerrilla conflict here is increasingly a war pitching
Iraqis against Iraqis, leading to a decline in U.S. casualty rates as
the number of Iraqi dead soars.
The prospect of stepped-up counterinsurgency efforts is greatly
unsettling to a Sunni Arab minority that already considers itself
besieged and disenfranchised in the new Iraq. Most Sunni Arabs
boycotted the Jan. 30 election, and their political representation is
scant.
Shiite leaders insisted on controlling the Interior Ministry
during marathon talks to form the new government. Their plan is to oust
guerrilla informants and sympathizers of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party
and go after insurgents in a more concerted fashion than the regime of
outgoing Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, whose political slate was shut out
of the new Cabinet.
Allawi, a secular Shiite who was himself a Baathist turned foe of
Hussein, tried with little success to coax insurgents into the
government through talks with Sunni tribal leaders and other
intermediaries.
Although Allawi did sign off on the U.S.-led attack on the former
Sunni rebel bastion of Fallouja in November, the Shiite Islamists about
to assume power here are clearly signaling a much harder line.
"Our policy will be to develop the security forces and uproot the
terrorist cells," Jawad Maliki, a prominent member of the dominant
Shiite coalition in the new National Assembly, said in an interview
here.
"They [Allawi's appointees] should have dealt with this situation
from the beginning," added Maliki, a member of the political bureau of
Dawa, the Islamist party of incoming Prime Minister Ibrahim Jafari. "We
will not let this grow."
The incoming interior minister also took a tough stance. "The
recent acceleration in terrorist attacks is posing a serious challenge
on the ground," Bayan Jabber told Al Hayat newspaper a day after the
new government was approved. "We must take immediate action."
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and other U.S. officials have
warned that a large-scale purge could sweep out capable officers as
well as compromised ones. U.S. authorities also fear a backlash among
Sunni Arabs who might otherwise join the evolving political process and
renounce armed struggle.
"If they [Iraqi authorities] want to reduce the level of the
insurgency, having competent people and avoiding unnecessary turbulence
is a high priority," Rumsfeld said in Washington last week.
But representatives of the new Shiite administration have harshly
assailed the outgoing Interior Ministry, which is in charge of internal
security, as riddled with insurgent informants and sympathizers of
Hussein's former Baathist regime.
The names of new policemen are being sold to "terrorists" bent on
assassination, the new interior minister said, and suspects pay bribes
to be sprung from custody.
"I could not sleep when I heard about this," Jabber said in an
interview with a television station run by his Shiite political party,
the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq. "We know many
of these violators and we plan to discover the rest. We will take
measures and people will see the changes in two months."
Shiites have agreed to allow a Sunni Arab to run the Defense
Ministry but have already vetoed at least one candidate because of past
Baathist ties. In the absence of a Sunni candidate acceptable to the
Shiite majority in the National Assembly, Prime Minister Jafari assumed
the top defense post on a temporary basis.
The new Shiite leadership appears determined to use its control of
the Interior Ministry as a spear point in coming offensives. Tens of
thousands of police officers and other troops are under its command.
Authorities plan increased deployment of the Interior Ministry's
special commandos, known as Maghawir (Fearless Warrior) brigades.
The units are largely composed of well-trained veterans of
Hussein's military who worked closely with U.S. forces during pitched
battles last year in Najaf, Fallouja and the northern city of Mosul.
Their loyalty to the new Iraq has been tested, officials say, despite
their service as commandos in Hussein's regime.
"We get involved once the police are helpless [against insurgents]
and unable to do their job," Maj. Gen. Rasheed Flayih Mohammed,
commander of the 12,000-strong Maghawir, said in an interview here.
Although he acknowledged U.S. logistical and technical support,
Mohammed insisted that his forces were all-Iraqi and largely free of
the U.S. taint that has marred many Iraqi units. "The Iraqi people
treat us with respect," Mohammed said. "They love us because we are
wearing our own Iraqi uniforms, and because we are doing our work by
ourselves."
The special forces units sport provocative titles — including the
Wolf, Scorpion, Tiger and Thunder brigades. Many Sunni Arabs view the
squads suspiciously as largely composed of Shiite and Kurdish rivals
eager to exact revenge for decades of suppression under Hussein, a
Sunni Arab.
"I blame the Maghawir for this outrage," Sheik Abdul-Salam
Kubaysi, a leading Sunni cleric in Baghdad, said of predawn raids and
arrests early Friday at half a dozen Sunni mosques in Baghdad and
Baqubah, northeast of the capital. At least one Sunni imam was killed.
"All of these people arrested are not terrorists: They are wise,
simple and humble people," said Kubaysi, spokesman for the Muslim
Scholars Assn., a leading Sunni Arab group.
In a recent interview at the heavily guarded Interior Ministry
here, an already legendary Iraqi commander known only as Maj. Gen. Abu
Walid pointed at a sprawling wall map of Baghdad to indicate future
targets.
"We are studying Baghdad now, to be ready for any mission we are
assigned," said Abu Walid, who heads the Wolf Brigade, which helped
control Mosul after most of the police force abandoned their posts late
last year during an insurgent uprising.
"Baghdad is filled with terrorists," declared Abu Walid, a native
of Shiite-dominated southern Iraq and whose real name remains a secret
for security reasons.
The Wolf Brigade commander became a national celebrity after he
began serving as host for taped "confessions" of alleged insurgents
that were aired on television here. Sunni critics charge that many of
the confessions were coerced through beatings, torture and other
extra-legal means. Abu Walid denies mistreatment.
In recent days, blue-and-white pickups ferrying Wolf Brigade
commandos have been seen about Baghdad. As is customary, the commandos
were outfitted in Hussein-era garb: green-and-beige uniforms and red
berets, the latter often adorned with their parachute wing medallion
pins. They toted heavy machine guns, Dragunov sniper rifles and, in one
case, rocket-propelled grenade launchers.
The planned counterinsurgency campaign comes as U.S. forces are
increasingly turning over security to Iraqi forces, and attacks with
sectarian overtones continue on almost a daily basis.
On Saturday, a car bomb went off outside a recently formed Sunni
political organization that favored participation in the new
government, killing at least one bystander and injuring 17. The night
before, officials said, someone had sprayed automatic-weapons fire at
the office.
"Whoever did this means to cripple the political process," said
Salih Mutlig of the Iraqi National Dialogue Council, the group that was
targeted in Saturday's bombing. "Without dialogue, the county will be
headed to greater tragedies."
Times staff writers Saif Rasheed, Raheem Salman,
Caesar Ahmed, Suhail Ahmad and Zainab Hussein contributed to this
report from Baghdad.
