Stryker Brigade News

It may not look like much, but garrisoning police so deep inside the insurgency's home turf would have been inconceivable a few months ago, say American officers, who credit the police with gathering intelligence leading to the capture of terror suspects even as attacks against police officers have soared. [...]

In addition, the Iraqi police suffer from widespread corruption. A $5,000 to $10,000 bribe can spring a prisoner from jail, says the American battalion's commander, Lieutenant Colonel Erik Kurilla. Many police officers terrify residents, shooting automatic weapons wildly to clear traffic or intimidate bystanders.

The police are also known to "arrest" people to serve as day laborers and to steal money during searches, say American officers.

And much of the intelligence the police gather comes from beating information out of detainees, Iraqi and American officers say - tactics some fear could hurt Mosul in the long run.

Kurilla said the police might be ready to replace U.S. troops next year - if their improvement continues and the flow of foreign fighters is stopped.

The police now shoot back at attackers instead of fleeing, and undercover officers are arresting insurgents, he said. "There are lots of issues," he said. "But where they are now versus where they were in November is night and day."

Early in the occupation, Mosul enjoyed relative peace despite its volatile ethnic mix of two million people, mostly Sunni Arabs on the west side of the Tigris River and Kurds on the east. At the outset, the American military based an oversized division of 30,000 here, but it cut the number of troops last year by two-thirds.

As the Marines invaded Falluja in November, Mosul was seized by an insurgent revolt. More than 200 Iraqi corpses, many of them soldiers and policemen, turned up along side streets or traffic circles, their heads sawed off or riddled with bullets.

For months Mosul had no police. Then, on March 23, five dozen men showed up at a police station near the Tigris called Four West, named for its status as one of the principal stations on the west side. Kurilla e-mailed his boss with the heading: "The west Mosul police are back…..for now."

Arriving in October, Kurilla's battalion endured some of the most violent urban warfare of the war. In 10 months, the 700-soldier unit has been awarded 153 Purple Hearts and seen a dozen men die, including one killed Aug. 4 by a sniper near Four West.

It is calmer now: Attacks against troops in western Mosul fell in July to their lowest level of the year. Commerce has returned, and vegetable and finished-goods markets bustle. But attacks against the police have risen as fast as attacks against Americans have declined, doubling in two months, Kurilla said.

About two of three insurgent attacks are now directed at Iraqi police officers or soldiers, he said. Even so, violence against American troops probably will never decline much further, he said.

"It's foolish to think there will be a nirvana where American soldiers can carry flowers down the street," he says. "There will always be somebody willing to pick up an AK-47 and shoot Americans."

Much of the police force's routine is still guided by American troops, who visit western Mosul's 10 police stations up to a half-dozen times a day and supply guns, barriers, computers and other needs, while inundating the police with constant direction on tactics and strategy. [...]

The story continues with more detail on the interaction the police and the Deuce Four in Mosul.