Old Problems Undermine New Security Plan for Baghdad

[maddezmom]

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But appearances in Iraq can often be deceiving. At least two of the national police officers who turned out for the operation were moving ahead of the American troops not to lead the security drive but to warn the residents to hide their weapons and other incriminating evidence.

Some policemen on the sweep advertised their Shiite sympathies. Infiltration by militias has always been a major problem for the Iraqi security forces, and particularly the police, viewed by many Sunnis in the capital as de facto Shiite militia fighters.

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“They can’t protect the Sunnis in the Shiite districts, and they will never fight the militias because they are from the same sect,” said Ahmed al-Mashhadani, a Sunni resident of west Baghdad, where other Baghdad security operations took place last week. “We don’t trust them, and if American troops leave, we will call back the resistance platoons to protect ourselves.”

American troops in northeast Baghdad heard the same refrain from Shiites who said that only their own militias could protect them from Sunni insurgents. “Before, the Mahdi Army checkpoints used to check each vehicle that came in here,” lamented one Facilities Protection Service guard, a Shiite, at a warehouse in Ur. “Now, the Iraqi police aren’t really checking each vehicle.”

more:http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/23/world/middleeast/23secure.html?ref=world&pagewanted=print