Nov. 30 - This information brings to mind concerns recently expressed by Roger L. Simon about where the money is coming from to finance the terrorism in Iraq:

A price has been put on the head of the senior British policeman seconded to supervise the restoration of law and order in Iraq by loyalists of Saddam Hussein.

Douglas Brand, a South Yorkshire assistant chief constable who is in charge of retraining the Iraqi police, has discovered that former members of the deposed dictator's Ba'athist regime have issued a contract to "do him harm".

Mr Brand, 52, said that the news was broken to him by the mayor of an Iraqi city in the so-called "Sunni Triangle" north-west of Baghdad during a recent visit to his offices at the coalition HQ in the Iraqi capital.

"The first thing the mayor said was, 'I know who you are. There are people who want to harm you'. I asked him what he meant and he said, 'People will be paid money to do so'. I wasn't quite sure if he was warning me or threatening me."

During an interview last week, Mr Brand said that such threats were becoming a daily hazard for senior coalition staff and the Iraqis who work with them. Estimates of the going rate for a successful "hit" are thought to be between $5,000 and $10,000 (£2,900-£5,800). Mr Brand, who is based in Sheffield but moved to Baghdad in July, said that 15 senior Iraqi policemen had been assassinated since he began work.

Mr Brand will remain in Baghdad to oversee what the coalition hopes will be the transformation of a demoralised, corrupt and widely hated police force into a modern security apparatus capable of tackling a front-line war on terrorism. As part of the world's biggest police training programme, up to 40,000 police officers have been recruited. The aim is for a further 35,000 to be trained up by the time the coalition cedes authority to a sovereign Iraqi government next summer.

In the meantime, car-bomb attacks and gun battles continue to claim the lives of his men almost daily: 30 have been killed and 75 injured in Baghdad alone since he arrived. Mr Brand, who has a masters degree in applied criminology from Cambridge, remains optimistic. "I always look to be positive, but actually I do think there are a lot of competent policemen out there. The absence of skill is because of a lack of opportunity.

"Last Monday, I went to a police station that was car-bombed a few weeks ago. You don't expect them to be doing cartwheels, but the commander just said, 'This is our job'. The police generally have a focus on what needs to be done and are courageous enough to go out and do it."

Posted by: Debbye at 09:58 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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