QUIS CUSTODIET IPSOS CUSTODES: IRAQ EDITION
Brutality and corruption are rampant in Iraq's police force

From the LA Times courtesy of Huffington Post courtesy of AlterNet:

Brutality and corruption are rampant in Iraq's police force, with abuses including the rape of female prisoners, the release of terrorism suspects in exchange for bribes, assassinations of police officers and participation in insurgent bombings, according to confidential Iraqi government documents detailing more than 400 police corruption investigations.

A recent assessment by State Department police training contractors echoes the investigative documents, concluding that strong paramilitary and insurgent influences within the force and endemic corruption have undermined public confidence in the government.

Officers also have 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.

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So, if the US isn't going to withdraw until Iraq is stable, it looks like we're going to be there for some time. Really, this level of corruption is absolutely no surprise: the US occupation created a corrupt Iraqi government; that government has created a corrupt police force. I know I've mentioned it before, but it's worth repeating. It increasingly appears that when the Iraqis didn't welcome US troops with laurel leaves and bottles of wine, plan B was to pursue policies that would divide the country along ethnic lines, fan the flames a bit, and let Sunnis and Shia go at it like madmen. Or, more simply, plan B was the classic Roman imperial strategy of "divide and conquer." So, Iraq is in utter chaos, but also utterly weak in terms of self-control or regional influence. They can kill our soldiers, but they can't drive them out. Thus, the stage is now set for permanent occupation of the second largest oil reserve in the world. Messy, but effective. Clearly, this atrocious police behavior is all part of the plan.

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