Iraq removes leaders of special police

The Iraqi government removed the country's two most senior police commanders from their posts on Oct. 17, in the first broad move against the top leadership of Iraq's 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. Their removal comes at a crucial time for Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, who has come under intense US pressure to purge Iraq's security forces of the militias and death squads that operate within their ranks. The two generals, Rasheed Fleyah and Mahdi Sabeh, both Shiites, had been in their posts since the previous government, under which abuses by largely Shiite police forces began. Iraq's Sunnis deeply fear the police commandos that grew out of control soon after a coalition of Shiite parties came to power last year. Maliki faces a nearly impossible task in weeding out the militias. Their influence runs deep in Iraqi society; they are present in the guard forces of Iraqi politicians, at the doors of mosques and even on college campuses. Iraqis of different sects and ethnicities do not trust one another after years of oppression under Saddam Hussein and militant violence since the US invasion. The central question in the special police is who will replace the two men. An Interior Ministry spokesman, Gen. Abdel Karim Khalaf, said a replacement has been chosen, but that his name could not be released until adequate security arrangements had been made for his family. His job–to command both branches of the special police that are set to be combined into one–will be one of the most dangerous in Iraq. Iraq's interior minister, Jawad al-Bolani, said recently that he had already fired more than 3,000 employees, and that, with Maliki's approval, no one was too senior to be immune. It was not clear, however, how much more of a purge would be needed. Another serious problem for US officials is Maliki's refusal to allow a major crackdown on Moqtada al-Sadr's militia, the Mahdi Army. Maliki recently told USA Today that he had blocked a US proposal to conduct a large-scale operation against the Mahdi Army, saying the government did not intend to disarm militias until the end of this year. This has been a long-smoldering issue for US forces, who faced two uprisings by the Shiite militia in April and August 2004, only to have Sadr escape outright defeat when Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the most powerful Shiite cleric in Iraq, intervened, allowing Sadr to keep large parts of his militia intact. Since then, the militias have mushroomed, with some portions splintering off into criminal fiefdoms. US commanders have contended that the Mahdi Army will eventually have to be crushed if Iraq is to achieve lasting stability. But Sadr controls one of the largest blocs of seats in parliament, so the Shiite-led governments of Maliki and his predecessor, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, have both depended on Sadr's political support and repeatedly resisted any showdown. Iraqi politicians, both Shiite and Sunni, have grown increasingly anxious in recent weeks that eroding public and congressional support for the war in the United States might prompt a major shift in US policy, particularly if the November midterm elections bring gains for the Democrats. Maliki will also have to consider the criticisms of senior US military commanders who, in background briefings with US reporters in recent weeks, have spoken with exasperation about the government's failure to tackle issues that have exhausted public confidence among Iraqis–above all the virtual impunity with which Shiite and Sunni death squads allowed to operate. The reordering of the police forces, beginning with the suspension of an entire Iraqi police brigade this month on suspicions that some members may have permitted or even participated in death squad killings, appeared to be one of the first serious attempts to address some of those US concerns.