Iraqi cop academy shut down. They're standing up, can we stand down now?

[bigtree]

New York Daily News - http://www.nydailynews.com
Iraqi cop academy to shut despite surge in violence

BY JAMES GORDON MEEK
DAILY NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU
Thursday, October 12th, 2006

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration plans to shut down a highly successful Iraqi police academy in Jordan even as security in Iraq worsens, the Daily News has learned.

The Jordan International Police Training Center near Amman will stop training Iraqi police recruits this year, having already graduated 40,000 cops from its eight-week course since 2004, U.S. officials confirmed.

President Bush has said American troops can come home from Iraq when Iraqi forces can secure their own country.

The $120 million Jordan academy is safe and has police trainers from 15 nations. It graduates a staggering 1,800 Iraqi cops and border guards each month. Fewer than 4% have washed out.

Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) expressed shock when told by The News that the facility will soon close.

"It is mystifying and maddening that they would shut this down while violence in Iraq is spiraling out of control and in the face of an urgent shortage of trained police officers," said Leahy, ranking Democrat on the Senate subcommittee overseeing Iraq reconstruction funding.


http://www.nydailynews.com/news/wn_report/v-pfriendly/story/460816p-387723c.html


http://journals.democraticunderground.com/bigtree

[Rex]

1. Senator please.

:eyes:

'Mystifying and maddening' stop being a coward and go on record for what it is; criminal negligence. If only you would make the Bush WH responsible for this horrible move. There is NOTHING 'mystifying' about it. Bush/Cheney want to shutdown anything that is highly successful, it goes against their core nature of failure and negligence.

Shock? How can anyone be shocked anymore? By anything Bush/Cheney have a hand in.

[bigtree]

2. look, no one is working harder than Sen. Patrick Leahy

I just don't understand why folks come in from the edges of the process and knock on our hardest workers because they don't like some word they use. Obviously, Leahy has no real power yet to effect anything. It would be nice if folks would take his cue and join in criticizing the BUSH REGIME on this issue along with the senator.

[babylonsister]

3. Agree, bigtree. Give Leahy a chance to absorb this move. He

usually does and says the right thing.

[Rex]

4. Oh I agree, Leahy has gotten in some really good ones.

I just wish it could be more along the lines of reality and not allude to supernatural forces. We all know WHO is responsible for his speech, it just doesn't make the same impact as calling someone a danger to the nation. Scary words for a politician, I know.

Sorry bigtree, I'm just venting. I would vote for Leahy over almost any other Dem in office. I just want to see more, sorry.

[bigtree]

5. This is a big one. They say they want to blend the program

into the Iraq academy, but Gen. Clark said today that the training of the police forces is 90% complete.


October 11, 2006
DoD News Briefing with Secretary Rumsfeld and Gen. Casey

"We are about 90 percent through building the police and border forces that we said we were going to help the Iraqis build, and we expect to complete that by the end of the year. We've also with the Iraqis started a national police reform program, where will take a whole Iraqi national police brigade offline, move them to a training base and give them three weeks of police training and loyalty training, so that we change not only the -- their abilities but the ethos of the unit. That will go on at about one brigade a month here until it's completed in the August timeframe. "

http://www.defenselink.mil/Transcripts/Transcript.aspx?TranscriptID=3755

[Rex]

6. Yeah, I can tell this is a big one.

90% done and very successful and we must shutdown the program. Because? This is very bad and more Dems must step up and make this public. WE pay for this and are owed answers by Bush/Cheney.

[Disturbed]

7. "when Iraqi forces can secure their own country..."

Translation: US Forces and Mercs will stay in Iraq in large numbers at the very least until 2009.

[Rex]

10. The Mercs worry me the most.

Just how may different 'factions' are there and who do they answer to? The contractors are running things and the mililtary is getting hurt daily for it.

So instead of pumping out quality police, the contractors say, 'shut it down'. Hmm..

[bigtree]

8. First, it exposes an inconsistency

If the Iraqi police force is 90% complete, why are our soldiers patrolling the streets of Iraq in greater numbers? Secondly, there needs to be an accounting of how our training and equipping contributed to the death-squad militias.

But, Sen. Leahy is making an important point about the state of the violence there, and whether the closing of this police academy signals an increased or continuing burden on our soldiers. The police forces seem to be losing hundreds of recruits a month. Our soldiers can't stay there forever policing their streets.

[bigtree]

9. Iraq loses 25 police to violence each day: US trainer

CHICAGO (AFP) -

{snip}

The training process was appallingly short and completely inadequate, said Stephen Pierson, a police officer who volunteered for military service so he could help train Iraqi police.

Unlike US police officers who receive six months of intensive training, Iraqi police were allotted one week. Because they were working in an open-air stadium, classes could not be taught in the afternoon and the fifth day of class was designated as a graduation ceremony.

"This in effect left only 16 hours of class time to teach up to 200 students, using an interpreter," Pierson said.

Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid decried the fact that despite widespread reports that Iraqi police officers "have actively engaged in or supported the activities of sectarian militias," this was the first time that Congress has examined the problem or looked to find a solution.

"We're spending three billion dollars a week in Iraq. I come to this hearing hoping the 2,700 Americans who have died there and 22,000 who were injured -- I hope it's going to amount to something," he said. "I don't leave this hearing with a lot of hope or confidence that we're going the right way."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20061013/wl_mideast_afp/usiraqunrestpolice