How security guards became killers
By Dahr Jamail and Ali al-Fadhily
BAGHDAD - The Facilities Protection Service (FPS) created after the invasion of
Iraq in 2003 has become the principal incubator of death squads in Iraq, senior
leaders say.
One of the first decisions that the US occupation authorities and the Iraqi
leaders working with them made was that each ministry could establish its own
protection force independent of the control
of the ministries of Interior and Defense.
Under Coalition Provisional Authority Order Number 27, the FPS was established
on April 10, 2003, the day after the fall of Baghdad. This document states:
"The FPS may also consist of employees of private security firms who are
engaged to perform services for the ministries or governorates through
contracts, provided such private security firms and employees are licensed and
authorized by the Ministry of Interior."
Globalsecurity.org, a US-based security research group, says: "The Facilities
Protection Service works for all ministries and governmental agencies, but its
standards are set and enforced by the Ministry of the Interior. It can also be
privately hired. The FPS is tasked with the fixed-site protection of
ministerial, governmental, or private buildings, facilities and personnel."
The security website adds: "The majority of the FPS staff consists of former
service members and former security guards. The FPS will now secure public
facilities such as hospitals, banks and power stations within their district.
Once trained, the guards work with US military forces protecting critical sites
like schools, hospitals and power plants."
General Harith al-Fahad of the former Iraqi army says the FPS turned out to be
no such thing. "All the forces formed were actually militias, not organized
forces, because they were formed according to rations given to each party in
power," he said at a cafe in Baghdad, with explosions echoing in the
background.
"Those politicians brought their followers into the so-called security forces.
Others took bribes of US$500-$700 from each applicant to be accepted regardless
of standard regulations."
When sectarian violence spread across Iraq after the Shi'ite shrine in Samarra
was destroyed last February, "The FPS appeared to be the main force that
conducted assassinations in Baghdad, and there is evidence that they did it for
money."
This seems to continue. US officers training Iraqi police told reporters last
week that infiltration of police units by militia members could delay the
handover of control of the Iraqi security forces for years.
"How can we expect ordinary Iraqis to trust the police when we don't even trust
them not to kill our own men?" Captain Alexander Shaw said. Shaw is head of the
police transition team of the 372nd Military Police Battalion, a Washington,
DC-based unit charged with overseeing training of all Iraqi police in western
Baghdad.
"To be perfectly honest, I'm not sure we're ever going to have police here that
are free of the militia influence," he said.
Most of the infiltration is coming from the two large Shi'ite a militias, the
Badr Organization that is the armed wing of the pro-Iranian Supreme Council for
Islamic Revolution in Iraq, and the Mehdi Army, the militia of Shi'ite cleric
Muqtada al-Sadr.
Shaw said about 70% of the Iraqi police force had been infiltrated, and police
officers were too afraid to patrol many areas of the capital.
Brigadier-General Salah al-Ani, chief of police for western Baghdad, told
reporters recently, "None of the Iraqi police [are] working to make their
country better. They're working for the militias or to put money in their
pocket."
Dr Nameer Hadi recently left his post at a major Baghdad hospital because he
felt threatened by the FPS. "I saw them kill in cold blood a lady patient when
they learned that she was the wife of a Sunni tribe leader," he said. "I am a
Shi'ite believer, but this kind of crime is unbearable."
It is common knowledge in Baghdad that the FPS consists mainly of criminals who
looted banks and government offices at the beginning of the US invasion in
April 2003. Many also believe that once the looters spent the money they stole,
they needed a new source of income, and they were hired by local and regional
powers for organized crime campaigns.
Iraqi Interior Minister Jawad al-Bolani rejected allegations last month that
the police and military had played a major role in the death squads. He said it
was the FPS, whose numbers he estimated to be 150,000, that was to blame for
the astronomical level of violence.
"Whenever we capture someone, we rarely find anyone is an employee of the
government ministries," Bolani said. "They've turned out to be mostly from the
FPS."
In an interview on Al-Arabiya satellite channel, Iraqi government spokesman Ali
al-Dabbagh accepted that security forces needed to be "purified". He blamed
mistakes made during the "Bremer period" for the current level of killings (L
Paul Bremer was the head of the Coalition Provisional Authority from May
2003-June 2004).
With attacks on government targets mounting, it is also not certain how far the
FPS has been effective in protecting facilities.
