All the talk is about more U.S. troops. But if there’s going to be a shot in hell of winning the war in Iraq, it’ll be up to the Iraqi police, argues Bing West in the current Atlantic. And those cops will need to be equipped with the latest crime-fighting gear.
In the United States, a cop who pulls you over calls up your record and finds out where and when you were last stopped, and what the charge was. The Chicago police [well, some of 'em - ed.] carry a device that takes fingerprints and transmits them over the radio, with the results of a database search received in minutes.In Iraq, the police have no detective equipment; no reliable identification system has been widely fielded. As a result, American soldiers on patrol futilely call in [if they can even call -- ed.] the phonetic spelling of Iraqi names on whatever ID card they are handed…) A few enterprising American rifle companies have conducted their own independent censuses, employing rudimentary spreadsheets and personal digital cameras. But no central information system exists.
This is the greatest technical failure of the war. For all of our efforts, we have ignored one of the most fundamental axioms of counterinsurgency warfare: an insurgency cannot be defeated if the enemy cannot be identified.
Now, of course, tech alone isn’t a solution. There needs to be a major upgrade of the Iraqi police, which West calls “among the most wretched in the world. New York City cops send some 26,000 criminals to prison every year; in Baghdad, with twenty times the murder rate, that number is at best 2,000.” And the local cops are often in bed with militias like the Mahdi Army.
But “when U.S. military manpower and technology work hand in hand with” competent Iraqi cops, “the combination can be effective,” West says.
Every day, aerial cameras hover over Anbar; some are mounted on unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and others on helicopters; some are infrared, others stream down video in sharp, brilliant colors. I was in a company operations center in Haditha when Captain Bert Lewis, the air officer, pointed at a screen showing a video feed… On the screen, we watched a man in a white dishdasha hastily scooping dirt over a boxy package, while cars passed by without slowing down.
“FedEx delivery,” Lewis said, to general laughter. “I don’t believe this dude.” The Nissan drove away as the man finished packing dirt around the improvised explosive device, or IED…
“Nail that sucker,” Lieutenant Joshua Booth said… The man looked up and down the street, and then ran south. The picture tilted, then zoomed in, holding him in the center of the frame. A series of black numbers scrolled along the right edge, updating the GPS coordinates. The target, solidly built and in his mid-thirties, had left the road and was now running along the riverbank…
As a Quick Reaction Force patrol closed on the GPS coordinates, the fugitive sat down in the shade of a palm tree, beckoning to someone on the river. Just as a square-nosed wooden skiff punted up to the man, the QRF, mounted in two Humvees, converged on the riverbank. The man scrambled to his feet, saw he had no place to run, and half-raised his arms to show he had no weapon.
(Big ups: PC)
Actually there is a system in place that is getting a lot of use, the BATS. Its a huge database, I’ve used it and it works – in my AO we detained 16 high value targets just based off of the system. And no the Iraqi police can’t have it, they are all pretty much dirty cops.
http://www.sodaro.com/Plone/bat_news
There are a number of pre-requisites to technology being usefull to the Iraqi police:
-Electricy: if the power doesn’t stay on, what good are all of the computers going to be?
-Literacy: both basic literacy and computer literacy
-Competence and integrity: as the previous poster mentioned, these are lacking too.
But then again, it can turn chicken and egg. How can we get consistent electricy without an effective policy force? How can we weed out corrupt cops without effective traceability of actions?
> -Electricy: if the power doesn’t stay on,
> what good are all of the computers going
> to be?
Field linguists (field = jungle etc.) work all the time in areas where electric power is on-and-off or non-existent. They power their laptops and other electronic gear with solar panels. I’ll bet there’s lots of solar power in Iraq
.
I think your comments are excellent and your understanding of strategy excellent. When my father attended once the National War College I also read (after he died) his books on counter espionage etc. In short, I believe we in the US are too concerned with our public world image to understand that to deal with terrorists who have neither ethics nor respect for life itself that there can ever be any kind of means of real retaliation unless we learn better from the lessons of WWII and how we won and ended it. Of course, it was bloody and,of course, we should never have dropped the bombs but what also then might have been the other alternatives if the Nazi’s or Japanese won???? My father was also a proud Marine who fought for our country and he taught me that although diplomacy is fine (and he was also an American diplomat who fought communism all his life,) that at some point one has no choice but to fight (as our own president also keeps pointing out). I am concerned that our country may become divided (as with Vietnam) and also as with the fight in Falujah (sp?) only allow more marines to die needlessly when we have the power to just tell them to have all the women and children leave within a number of days and then use smart bombs to obliterate Babylon or anyone else who thinks its ok to kill Americans or just burn our flag. Some may think this is just radicalism but then again I guess those same people think its ok that innocent people are dying everyday (especially in Israel) or that our enemies are even trying in the name of Jihad to act as if they are true Moslems. What a farse. Why doesn’t the REAL Moslem community just condemn them outright and publically both online and whereever??? I know some have but the real truth(in my opinion) is that most Americans (whatever their faith) either no longer really believe in God (although,of course, there are also many who really do,)but because of denial or just general unwillingness to act are ,therefore, unable to even make a stand for either themselves or our country. I weep for America when I see our flag at half-mast. My aunt Minnilee Wire once was very influential in Washington and was a best friend of Lady Byrd Johnson. She also had alot to do with making sure the same flag which inspired our national anthem was also hung in the Smithonian and became the song we sing in order to rouse us all to patriotism. My father also (once a WWII Marine Correspondent) also helped get the picture of the now famous raising of our flag at Iowa Jima famous since at that time he also knew many people in the news and photography field since he also himself once worked even for the Washington Post. In general, I am only mentioning all this since I guess that their generation is now gone I’m left to carry on and try to inspire today’s generation while there’s still time. Sincerely, Derek Wilson