Petraeus says U.S. may use notorious Iraqi FPS security forces in Baghdad push

The FPS force is notorious for participation in sectarian torture and murder. As recently as the end of November the Washington Post labeled it as providing the 'manpower for sectarian party militias and death squads' and Iraq's Interior Minister blamed it for the majority of violence in Baghdad. Just 4 weeks ago Lt. Gen. Martin Dempsey, who is in charge of training Iraqi forces, said 25% of the force needed to be expunged. At about the same time, Vice President Hashemi labeled the FPS as "being filled with sectarian militias, terrorists and organized crime gangs".

Army Lt. Gen. David H. Petraeus, the new top U.S. commander in Iraq, told Congress that he might supplement efforts to secure Baghdad using the Iraqi Facilities Protection Service, a 150,000-man force that guards Iraqi government agencies. But that service is widely considered unreliable, and elements were described in July by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki as "more dangerous than the militias," according to Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.).

"The prime minister said he wanted to get rid of the FPS as fast as possible," Reed said this week, recalling his meeting with Maliki in Baghdad last summer. There are "bad elements" in FPS units that "are carrying out murders and kidnappings . . . [and] attacking the infrastructure that they are supposedly protecting," Reed said in his trip report about what Maliki had told him. "Because of the FPS," Reed wrote, Maliki said that "some governmental ministries' guards are more dangerous than the militias."

Read the rest at the Washington Post

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