IRAQ:Iraqi forces who took over security from US troops in Diyala, one of Iraq's most troubled provinces, have been implicated in widespread abuses, writes Solomon Moorein Baquba
When US forces killed Abu Musab al- Zarqawi, the leader of al Qaeda in Iraq, six months ago in a village near Baquba, they hoped security would improve in this strategic province just north of Baghdad.
Instead, security has collapsed in Diyala province, which ranks as one of Iraq's most troubled regions. Insurgent attacks have more than doubled in the past year. Violence has devastated the provincial police force and brought reconstruction almost to a standstill.
Assassinations have claimed the lives of mayors, tribal chieftains, police officials and judges, including a Shia member of the provincial council who was killed on Tuesday. Many government officials sleep on cots in their offices because driving home is too dangerous.
Iraqi security forces have been implicated in so many abuses that the US commander in Baquba recently gave his Iraqi counterpart an angry lecture, likening the Iraqi troops to an "undisciplined rabble".
US and Iraqi officials have put the blame on US neglect and abuses by the Iraqi army. US troops have largely disengaged from security for weeks at a time, they say, handing the reins to Iraqi forces who have proven to be abusive and ineffective.
US commanders are attempting a sharp change in strategy, hoping that a classic counterinsurgency campaign, combining reconstruction aid with a more active US presence, can turn the situation around.
For now, insurgents appear to have gained the upper hand. They demonstrated their freedom of movement last week by barrelling a dozen trucks through the streets of Baquba's Amin neighbourhood, shouting militant slogans and brandishing machine guns and shoulder-fired rocket launchers.
The show of force was similar to another insurgent parade caught on video by a US aerial drone in November. Insurgents were seen hauling Shia families out of their homes and executing them in the streets.
Diyala is an area of fertile farmland, abundant water and untapped oil wells stretching north of Baghdad's suburbs and east to the Iranian border. Its population includes all three of Iraq's main religious and ethnic groups.
Of its roughly 1.8 million people about 55 per cent are Sunni Muslims. But because Sunnis boycotted elections two years ago, Shias, who make up about one-third of Diyala's population, now hold the majority of provincial council seats and control the local security forces.
Kurds, mostly in northeastern Diyala, make up about 15 per cent.
Until October, the main US force in the province, the 4th infantry division, largely followed the strategy laid down by top US commanders in Iraq last year: pull American forces back as much as possible and allow Iraqi troops to take the lead in fighting insurgents. US officers in Baquba say that approach did not work.
Iraq's Shia-dominated government appointed a provincial commander whom US military officials say was hand-picked by the Badr organisation, a Shia militia implicated in hundreds of death-squad killings in Baghdad.
The Badr militia is linked to Iraq's largest Shia political party, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq.
Under orders from the Iraqi ground forces command in Baghdad this autumn, the commander, Brig Gen Shakir Hulail Hussein Kaabi, and his 5th Iraqi division started a campaign of what US officials describe as abusive raids and detentions.
The problems were so serious that Col David Sutherland, the commander of the 3rd heavy brigade combat team, took the unusual step of lecturing his Iraqi counterpart during a mid-December briefing at Forward Operating Base Warhorse in Baquba.
"Bullying an innocent person is unacceptable. Taking things from houses is unacceptable. Taking cars or things from cars is unacceptable," he said.
"Before we send an undisciplined rabble into this fight I will pull the plug. We are soldiers, not barbarians."
Since Col Sutherland took command of Diyala in October, he has increased the number of embedded US advisers with Iraqi army units and required US approval for any Iraqi operations, effectively rescinding Iraqi control of the 5th division.
Col Sutherland said several joint raids convinced him that Shakir was willing to change his tactics and adopt a counter- insurgency doctrine of proportional force.
"In this culture, the more you kill, the more enemies you make. The more you treat with disrespect, the more enemies you make," said Sutherland. "And we were able to show [ Gen Shakir], not subjectively, but objectively, how that happened and what it created."
American commanders won at least a partial victory in late December when the government agreed to replace Diyala's police chief, Ghassan Bawi, who had been accused of tacitly or directly supporting death squads in the province. Like Shakir, Ghassan had been endorsed by the Badr organisation, US officials said.
Detainees reported kidnappings and torture at the hands of Iraqi policemen, US and Iraqi officials said. One of Ghassan's most infamous underlings is known as "Cable Ali" after his favourite coercive tool.
Shakir said he had changed his tactics and now used more focused operations, but he clung to the view that his main targets were Sunni Arabs, not Shias. "The nature of the target is that they are all Sunnis," Shakir said. "All these problem areas are all Sunni, so our operations are all in Sunni areas. There are actually no Shias left, because 8,000 Shias have been killed or displaced."
Even with the reforms, however, it may be too late.
Diyala's Sunni Arab politicians have refused to attend provincial council meetings until Shakir is stripped of his command, preventing the governing body from reaching a quorum for weeks.
The US has spent roughly $220 million (€166 million) in reconstruction funds on Diyala, but as winter temperatures plunge, food, transport, electricity generation and petroleum shipments are beset by chronic delays, when they occur at all.
Most Baquba shops are closed and most streets devoid of traffic. Sewers are dysfunctional, spilling sludge across the refuse-covered streets and contaminating the water supply. - (Los Angeles Times- Washington Post service)