Documents detail abuse by Iraqi police

Brutality and corruption are rampant in Iraq's police force, with abuses including the rape of female prisoners, extensive bribery, assassinations and participation in insurgent bombings, according to confidential Iraqi government documents detailing more than 400 corruption investigations. Officers have also beaten prisoners to death, been involved in kidnapping rings, sold thousands of stolen and forged Iraqi passports, and passed along vital information to insurgents, the Iraqi documents allege. The documents, which cover part of 2005 and 2006, were detailed in a July 9 Los Angeles Times article. The offenses span dozens of police units and hundreds of officers, including beat cops, generals and police chiefs. Officers were punished in certain instances, but the vast majority of cases are either under investigation or were dropped because of lack of evidence or witness testimony. The investigative documents, which were authenticated by current and former Iraqi police officials, are the latest in a string of disturbing revelations of abuse and corruption by Iraq's Interior Ministry, a Cabinet-level agency that employs 268,610 police, immigration, facilities security and dignitary protection officers. After the discovery in November of a secret Interior Ministry detention facility in Baghdad operated by police intelligence officials affiliated with a Shiite militia, US officials declared 2006 "the year of the police." They vowed a renewed effort to expand and professionalize Iraq's civilian officer corps. But US officials say the renegade force in the ministry's intelligence service that ran the bunker in Baghdad's Jadiriya neighborhood continues to operate out of the Interior Ministry building's seventh floor. A senior US military official in Iraq confirmed that one of the leaders of the renegade group, Mahmoud Waeli, is the "minister of intelligence for the Badr Corps" Shiite militia and a main recruiter of paramilitary elements for Interior Ministry police forces. The report's findings are borne out in hundreds of pages of internal investigative documents. The documents include worksheets with hundreds of short summaries of alleged police crimes, letters referring accused officers to Iraq's anti-corruption agencies and courts, citizen complaints of police abuse and corruption, police inspector general summaries detailing financial crimes and fraudulent contracting practices and reports on alleged sympathizers of Saddam Hussein's former regime. The documents detail a police force in which abuse and death at the hands of policemen is frighteningly common. Police officers' loyalties appear to be a major problem, with dozens of accounts of insurgent infiltration and terrorist acts committed by ministry officials. In one case, a ring of Baghdad police officers–including a colonel, two lieutenants and a captain–were accused of stealing communications equipment for insurgents, who used the electronics for remote bomb triggers. In another case, a medic with the Interior Ministry's elite commando force in Baghdad was fired after he was accused of planting improvised explosives and conducting assassinations. In Diyala province, investigators were looking into allegations that a police officer detonated a suicide vest in the bombing of a police station. In a separate case, a brigadier general, a colonel and a criminal judge were accused of taking bribes from a suspected insurgent. Police officers have also organized kidnapping rings that abduct civilians for ransom–in some of the cases, the victims are police officers. Two Baghdad police commanders kidnapped a lieutenant colonel, stole his ministry car and demanded tens of thousands of dollars from the victim's family, the documents allege. In that case, the two accused were fired and taken to court. In another case, the bodyguards of a police colonel in the Zayona neighborhood of Baghdad kidnapped merchants for ransom, according to the documents. In the capital's Ghazaliya neighborhood, a lieutenant and his brother-in-law kidnapped a man and demanded a huge ransom from his family. Abuse by police is also a common theme. The victims include citizens who tried to complain about police misbehavior, drivers who disobeyed traffic police commands and, in several cases, other police officers. But detainees appear to be targeted most often. The US military has been reportedly working with the Iraqi government to standardize detention facilities and policies, and the US assessment claims that several site visits turned up no serious human rights abuses. But the ministry documents reveal a brutal detention system in which officers run hidden jails, and torture and detainee deaths are common. The documents mention four investigations into the deaths of 15 prisoners at the hands police commando units. In the Rusafa section of Baghdad, a predominantly Shiite area known for its strong militia presence, police tortured detainees with electricity, beatings and, in at least one case, rape, according to the internal documents. Relief was reserved for those detainees whose relatives could afford to bribe detention officers to release them. The Wolf Brigade, a notorious commando unit trained by US forces, illegally detained more than 650 prisoners, according to the documents. During a mass release of Wolf Brigade prisoners last November, dozens of malnourished men were among the released detainees; several were so weak that they could not walk without assistance. Female detainees are often sexually assaulted. According to the documents, the commander of a detention center in the Karkh neighborhood of the capital raped a woman who was an alleged insurgent in August. That same month, two lieutenants tortured and raped two other female detainees. A separate report by private contractors hired by the US State Department to help train Iraqi police notes that "the current climate of corruption, human rights violations and sectarian violence found in Iraq's security forces undermines public confidence." Payroll fraud, other kinds of corruption and intimidation campaigns by insurgent and militia organizations undermine police effectiveness in key cities throughout Iraq," the report added. Referring to Sunni Arab insurgent groups and Shiite paramilitary organizations, the report says "these groups exploit [Interior Ministry] forces to further insurgent, party and sectarian goals. As a result, many Iraqis do not trust the police. Divisions falling along militia lines have led to violence among police." "[Interior Ministry] officials and forces are widely reported to engage in bribery, extortion and theft," the report says. "For example, there are numerous credible reports of ministry and police officials requiring payment from would-be recruits to join the police." The report increased tensions between the Pentagon, which runs the police training program, and the State Department, which has been pushing to expand its limited training role in Iraq, according to a US official who spoke on condition of anonymity. US officials say they have known about Interior Ministry abuses for years but have done little to thwart them, choosing instead to push Iraqi leaders to solve their own problems. "The military had been at the bunker prior to the raid in November," said one US official, referring to the Jadiriya facility. "But they said nothing."