Iraqi police, army mending fences

Iraqi police, army mending fences
By James Warden, Stars and Stripes
Mideast edition, Tuesday, January 6, 2009

BAGHDAD — Leather-coated Iraqi police with machine guns waved a steady stream of cars through a checkpoint late last month at the entrance to the southern third of Sadr City. A baby-blue pickup with a machine gun on top offered the officers a bit of extra firepower while officers peeked in cars and questioned passers-by.

"Here we are doing our job perfectly," said Aehab Reade Hatem, a police officer at the checkpoint. "We are searching vehicles and helping the Iraqi army."

The scene would not be unusual in any other part of Iraq, but for Sadr City the presence of Iraqi police is a visual reminder that the Baghdad slum is steadily shrugging off the control of Shiite militants who once ran the district.

Sadr City had a police force before the Americans and Iraqis went into the area as part of a cease-fire agreement that ended the Sadrists’ spring uprising. But fighters from the Mahdi Army — the Sadrist militant wing — had so infiltrated the force that it couldn’t be trusted.

The Iraqi government disbanded the entire force and replaced it with officers from outside the area, mainly from Rusafa, said Lt. Col. Brian Eifler, commander of Task Force 1st Battalion, 6th Infantry Regiment, the American unit in charge of the area.


Rest of article at: http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=59807

The psudo-peace is a short term stop gap - at best.

If military history is any indicator of things to come, we'll SOON need to name our new monstrosity of an embassy complex "the quintessential soft target" in the not too distant future. :(