Reply #14: He apparently does not talk with Gen. Casey "Police Force Hobbled" [View All]

[leftchick]

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/world/3644750.ht...

Gen. Casey Says Iraqi Police Hobbled

BAGHDAD, Iraq — U.S. forces are accelerating efforts to build a strong, professional police force in Iraq but it will take time to instill democratic values in the ranks, the top American general here said Wednesday.

Gen. George Casey Jr., said the command has declared 2006 as the "year of the police," a tacit acknowledgment that the more than 80,000-strong Iraqi force has been hobbled by incompetence, corruption, sectarianism and low morale.

The U.S. military wants more than 130,000 police operating by 2007 as part of the strategy to shift security responsibility to the Iraqis so that American and other international troops can begin to head home.

"If Iraq is going to be successful here, the civil authorities have to be able to maintain domestic order and deny this as a terrorist safe haven," Casey said in an interview with The Associated Press and National Public Radio in his spartan office in the Green Zone.