Hilla SWAT

FORWARD OPERATING BASE, IRAQ -- We've been up since 3 a.m. waiting for Hilla SWAT (Special Weapons and Tactics), the elite Iraqi police force. It's now 4:30 a.m. Despite their annoyance, the Force Recon squad from the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit seems extremely patient, at least around me and a photographer for the Chicago Tribune, Kuni Takahashi. They look at their watches and BS each other about depravities -- typical life details at a military FOB (forward operating base) in Iraq.

We've been up since 3 a.m. waiting for Hilla SWAT (Special Weapons and Tactics), the elite Iraqi police force. It's now 4:30 a.m.

Despite their annoyance, the Force Recon squad from the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit seems extremely patient, at least around me and a photographer for the Chicago Tribune, Kuni Takahashi. They look at their watches and BS each other about depravities -- typical life details at a military FOB (forward operating base) in

These Marines at FOB Kalsu still sleep in tents, use Porta-Johns and live in the dirt. This is no Camp Victory Green Zone paradise with guys chilling in air-conditioned trailers and eating at the Bob Hope Dining Facility, a Zeppelin hangar of a building just down the road from Baghdad International Airport.

Everyone at Kalsu has seen or heard about how the other half lives in the Green Zone. They piss and moan but don't denounce the Green Zone's existence. They are, after all, Americans. It's about aspirations and believing that hard work and perseverance may someday get you to the promised land.

But for now they're waiting for Hilla SWAT, which is supposedly better trained, slightly better paid (about $200 a month compared to the $120 most get) and definitely better armed. Despite their elite status, they're late as hell.

When they finally show up, they are in white pickup trucks with "Iraqi SWAT" and their logo, a scorpion poised to strike, painted on the doors.

This is the gig today: a sweep through the sleepy burg of Jabella, a supposed haven for criminals and terrorists looking for a little R and R from the 24/7 insurgency in Fallujah and Ramadi. The goal is to net some bad guys and weapons caches, to let locals know the authorities have at least one eye open when it comes to extracurricular activities.

It's not a bad sized operation -- about 130 Hilla SWAT members, backed by about 300 Marines and 100 Polish troops. But the donkey work today is supposed to be executed by the Iraqis.

With the exception of their chocolate brown flak vests, they wear a hodgepodge of uniforms. Some are in camouflage pants, some in jeans with knit shirts, ski masks or green bandanas tied around their heads. But what they lack in sartorial splendor, they make up in gusto.

When we arrive in Jabella, the Marines let the Hilla team take the lead. They pile out of their pickups and sweep in big masses of 30 or 40 guys, kicking up dust in the streets like Texas dirt devils. There may be a plan, but it doesn't seem like it.

They sweep into one house on the east side of the street then emerge en masse and pile through a gate into another. They detain a few men here and there, simply taking them by the hand and leading them to one of the pickups.

The hands of those detained are bound with strips of brightly colored cloth until one SWAT member asks a Marine for some of the white plastic zip strips hanging from his pack. The Iraqi cop seems to love the sound as he pulls the bindings around the wrists of his captive. They also seem to love my camera, posing like Iraqi Rambos or taking giant strides as they go about their tasks.

The Marine captain briefly admonishes Kuni and I when we follow some of the Iraqi SWAT guys into a house. "I told you not to go in unless some of my guys are with you," he says. "Get out of there."

He then assigns two Marines to follow us as we trail the SWAT teams, clearly not so confident that the frenetic energy of Hilla SWAT provides the margin of safety for the two journalists he's been tasked to bring back unscathed.

As the operation comes to a close, the captains and lieutenants of Hilla SWAT drift back to the bed of one of the white pickup trucks where a small wiry man in a black knit shirt is smoking cigarettes as cool and casual as Dean Martin in Vegas. They are deferential to this man who represents the type of magnetic, irrefutable singular authority that has held sway in Iraq for so long. He is the Hilla SWAT team's lieutenant colonel. He tells his men to finish mopping up, that it's time to go. Within half an hour, Hilla SWAT is headed out of the city.

Kuni and I walk back to the Marine Humvee we rode in to the raid. Dean Jones is already sitting in the back of the open vehicle.

 

Jones is a retired cop with 26 years experience, including time on the Denver SWAT team. He's in Iraq for the next year as adviser and liaison to the Iraqi police. He's employed by DynaCorp, the military contractor that provides everything from spray pilots for State Department coca eradication programs in Colombia to MP-5 toting bodyguards for pro-American leaders in Iraq and Afghanistan. But Jones seems beholden to no one and is refreshingly candid in a place where there's so much political spinning that the entire world is getting dizzy.

"I wish you could've been here to see some of this," he tells me, shaking his head with disappointment.

"What?" I ask.

"Well, after the Hilla guys went through one house, the owner came out shortly afterwards and said, 'All my wife's jewelry is missing.' Then they kind of reacted to him, if you know what I mean."

 

"Got a little thuggish?"

 

"That would be a good word," Jones says, "Thuggish. We've got a lot of work to do here."

The Iraqi police have a long reputation for laziness and corruption. Especially under the regime, they were Saddam's muscle, enforcers and benefactors of his brutal rule. Their small salaries were subsidized by whatever they could steal from those they were supposed to protect. Despite U.S. military-run police training here, the cops' and the public's attitudes have not changed overnight.

The police and Iraqi National Guard have been major victims of the insurgency, with thousands killed in attacks on recruiting stations, bases and police headquarters. But they haven't proven highly effective or motivated in taking on well-trained former regime loyalists or religiously motivated militias such as Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army.

 

It is the challenge and frustration echoed by the military commanders, administrators and rebuilders across Iraq: the conquered are not fully cooperating in the nation's reconstruction.

 

"In some ways," Jones says of the Iraqi police, "they're hedging their bets; they're still not sure who's going to win this thing."

Next: Blog Smog

Previous: Under the Steel Rain: Life at Camp 'Dirty Bird'

Permalink:

http://hotzone.yahoo.com/b/hotzone/blogs797

Email Story IM Story

RECOMMEND THIS STORY

Recommend It:

Not at All Somewhat Moderately Highly Very Highly

Average (Not Rated)

Scheduled Conflict Coverage

• Afghanistan
• Cambodia
• Chechnya
• Colombia
• Congo
• Haiti
• Iran
• Iraq
• Kashmir
• Israel/Palestinians
• Lebanon

• 2006 Mideast Crisis
• Myanmar (Burma)
• Nepal
• Somalia
• Sri Lanka
• Sudan
• Syria
• Uganda
• Vietnam

Hot Zone Watch List

• Algeria
• Angola
• Burundi
• Chad
• Ivory Coast
• Korean Peninsula
• Liberia

• Nigeria
• Peru
• The Philippines
• Thailand
• Uzbekistan
• Zimbabwe