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U.S. To Add More Military Advisers for Iraqi Police

Posted on: Friday, 30 December 2005, 15:00 CST

By Dexter Filkins New York Times News Service

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- U.S. commanders are planning to increase significantly the number of U.S. soldiers advising Iraqi police commando units, in part to curtail abuse that the units are suspected of inflicting on Sunni Arabs, a senior U.S. commander in Iraq said Thursday.

Under the plan, which the officer expected to receive formal approval in a few weeks, the number of advisers working with the Iraqi units would be greatly expanded. The advisers themselves would be placed under the command of U.S. officers in the field.

U.S. advisers now accompany Iraqi commando units as part of the vast effort to train and equip Iraqi security forces to take over the fight against the insurgency and maintain order.

But the number of advisers is relatively small: Currently, groups of about 40 U.S. soldiers each are attached to seven of the nine special Iraqi police brigades.

Under the new plan, which would be put in force in and around Baghdad, all the Iraqi units would get U.S. advisers, and the advisers' total number would be increased by several hundred, said the commander, who spoke to reporters in Baghdad only on condition of anonymity.

In one case, he said, an entire U.S. battalion, typically with more than 500 soldiers, will be attached to a particular Iraqi brigade.

The increase is seen as a way to exert firmer control over the commando units, which are suspected of carrying out widespread atrocities against civilians in Sunni Arab neighborhoods.

The conduct of the commandos has become a source of intense friction between the Shiite-led Iraqi government and U.S. officials, who say the reports of the atrocities are jeopardizing the campaign to persuade Sunnis to stop supporting the insurgency.

The plan to increase the number of U.S. advisers is a significant departure from the overall U.S. strategy of giving the Iraqis the lead role in fighting the insurgency. Indeed, the allegations of atrocities arose only after Americans began to give the Iraqi units more freedom to act on their own.

Many of the Iraqi commando units are thought to be filled by gunmen drawn from the military wings of Shiite political parties, including the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, or SCIRI, which forms part of the Shiite coalition that is expected to lead the next government. The Mahdi Army, a militia run by the rebel cleric Muqtada al-Sadr is also believed to have hundreds of gunmen working in the Iraqi police and commando units.

A spokesman for the U.S. headquarters in charge of training in Iraq, Lt. Col. Fred Wellman, confirmed on Thursday that preparations for an increase in advisers were under way.

A similar plan is already in place with the Iraqi army, whose soldiers have a reputation among Iraqis as being more humane than the commandos.

Source: Deseret News (Salt Lake City)

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