If the Iraqi Interior Ministry police were indeed involved in the seizure of some 100 men from a Baghdad higher education facility this week, the crime is a frightening illustration of the terrible straits in which this already mauled and brutalized country finds itself. It has long been known that mainly Shiite militants have infiltrated the ranks of the police and army. Whole units were considered and actually disbanded. Some stand accused of the ruthless nightly sectarian torture and murders, the gruesome evidence of which now mars the capital’s streets each morning.
However, the Interior Ministry police, as in Saddam Hussein’s day, were considered by many to be a largely disciplined elite. It was for this very reason that the decision was made to dress them in special US-made uniforms that would be extremely difficult to fake. It was assumed that in the past, when apparent Interior Ministry police had perpetrated some heinous crime, they were in fact insurgents wearing stolen uniforms. That indeed was the reaction when the first news broke of the dramatic seizure of up to 100 occupants of a government research institute by men clothed in Interior Ministry uniforms who had bluffed their way into the complex. First thoughts were that the Iraqi authorities had been deluded by their US suppliers into thinking that a uniform that can’t be faked could ever be made.
Now however, with the arrest of five senior Interior Ministry police officers, it is beginning to look as if this spectacular terrorist crime may actually have been carried out by members of the force itself. There is a great deal of confusion, both as to the number of men originally kidnapped and the number since released, in what appear to have been police raids. It is by no means clear if some of these unfortunate innocents may in fact have been slain because of their communal or religious background.
For the Iraqi government, ensconced relatively safely within the protective walls of the Green Zone, this is potentially a major scandal. For the Americans it is disastrous evidence that if Bush wants to tie a US withdrawal to the time when Iraqis can safely take responsibility for their own security, that time is a long way off.
The greatest blow, however, is to ordinary decent Iraqis of all backgrounds, who want only to get on with their lives in peace. The appalling truth now is that they can no longer trust anyone except their families and their long-standing friends. The most powerful weapon in the terrorist armory is not the bomb, nor even the suicide bomber, but the collapse of trust in the police, the pre-eminent symbols of law and good governance in any civilized society. It was always thought that the insurgents had used this wisdom with wicked brilliance. Suddenly there seems to be stunning evidence that large numbers of real policemen, some of considerable seniority and all of whom swore to uphold the law and protect all Iraqis, have been involved in ethnic violence. If true, this is appalling.
