Iraqi police to train in country with poor human rights record and high police abuse

Skunk · 08-26-2003, 04:27 AM

Washington is seeking to train thousands of Iraqi police at a military base in Hungary as part of its efforts to restore law and order in Iraq, US officials say.
The United States is holding talks with Hungary about using Taszar Air Base to train Iraqis in police skills in the coming months, but no final agreement had been reached.

News of the move comes with the Bush administration under increasing domestic pressure to ease the burden on existing forces in Iraq.

On Monday, the death toll for US troops in "post-war" Iraq rose to 138 - the same number of troops killed in the conflict up to 1 May, when President Bush declared an end to combat operations.

The US army used the Taszar base earlier this year to train more than 100 exiled Iraqis as guides, translators and for other non-combat tasks with the coalition forces which invaded Iraq in March.

US officials have set the goal of training and deploying 65,000 Iraqi police officers around the country, a spokeswoman for the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad told Reuters news agency.

About 37,000 Iraqi police officers are already working in Iraq, the spokeswoman said, meaning thousands more could require training at Taszar, if Hungary agrees to the arrangement

'Iraqi face' on security

Hungary's government is receptive to the idea but is still waiting for a formal request from Washington, the Hungarian foreign ministry told Associated Press.

"Of course, any official request would have to be considered further by the government, but something of this nature could help save the Taszar base from closure," spokesman Tamas Toth said.

US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has said Iraqis are being trained at an accelerated pace to put "an Iraqi face" on the security forces.

"It may well be that a number of them will be trained outside the country," Mr Rumsfeld said on Monday.

Earlier this month, the former New York police chief who has been put in charge of rebuilding Iraq's police force said he was making good progress in controlling crime.

Bernard Kerik - who was appointed to run the interior ministry - said police had recently broken up four gangs involved in kidnapping Iraqi civilians for ransom.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3181089.stm

It just gets better and better, doesn't it? Here's what they will be trained to do:

"Discrimination and police violence against Roma and the ill-treatment of asylum seekers and refugees remained persistent problems in Hungary in 1999. Despite the backdrop of systematic human rights violations by state actors targeting minority groups and refugees, Hungary gained NATO membership in March and continued the process of accession with the European Union.

Relations between the Roma community and the police deteriorated in 1999 despite pressure from western governments and human rights groups urging the Hungarian government to curb rampant police abuse. In the town of Hajduhadhaz, eastern Hungary, the European Roma Rights Center (ERRC) reported that police routinely beat, verbally abused, and searched the apartments of Roma without cause. Of the fifteen cases opened against police officers in Hajduhadhaz in recent years, all remain either unresolved or ended in acquittals. Following the March 1999 broadcast of a nationally televised news program, Fokusz , about police brutality in Hajduhadhaz, police arrested and beat a Roma man who appeared on the program. Two other Roma men who were interviewed on the program went into hiding fearing retaliation. In response to intense public pressure by local Roma rights groups and the media, the Ministry of Interior admitted on June 18 that Hajduhadhaz had the highest reported level of police violence in Hungary and that half of the town's police force, twenty-six officers, were under investigation for alleged abusive conduct."
http://www.hrw.org/wr2k/Eca-11.htm

Oh, almost forgot - this comes on top of recruiting some of Saddam's most brutal servants back into action:
"BAGHDAD, Aug. 23 -- U.S.-led occupation authorities have begun a covert campaign to recruit and train agents with the once-dreaded Iraqi intelligence service to help identify resistance to American forces here after months of increasingly sophisticated attacks and bombings, according to U.S. and Iraqi officials....

...Authorities have stepped up the recruitment over the past two weeks, one senior U.S. official said, despite sometimes adamant objections by members of the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council, who complain that they have too little control over the pool of recruits. While U.S. officials acknowledge the sensitivity of cooperating with a force that embodied the ruthlessness of Hussein's rule, they assert that an urgent need for better and more precise intelligence has forced unusual compromises...

Hussein's security forces were a suffocating presence in Iraq and still cast a long shadow...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...2003Aug23.html

Someone tell me again how the new Iraqi regime differs from old? We have ex-Saddam loyalists and criminals in the unelected 'provisional government'; we're about to train the police in how to abuse the public and the old secret police are back in action.

I'm now waiting for Paul Bremer to grow a black moustache and then the circle will have been completed...

[ 08-26-2003, 05:02 AM: Message edited by: Skunk ]

Timber Loftis · 08-26-2003, 09:35 AM

Don't do anything, people bitch. Try to do something, people moan. One wonders why we as Americans have simply gotten over the squawking and squeeling from everyone and just do whatever the frik we want. [img]graemlins/1ponder.gif[/img]

Skunk · 08-26-2003, 10:09 AM

Oh don't be silly - there's a right way to do things and a wrong way. The current administration has a knack of picking the wrong way at (almost) every possible turn.

Instead of giving local dissent a peaceful and legitimate forum in the form of an elected government - the US decides to hire ruthless killers and torturers from the old regime to kill any opposition... well duh! That will win hearts and minds, eh?

Let's tackle crime by making sure the police are as brutal as possible - trained by those who know more about brutality than any other police force in the world. That way, when there's a crime - its easy to find the culprit: he's the one wearing a police uniform.

Or perhaps we should just 'fire' 1.5 million people leaving them with only one way to feed their families: armed robbery - that should give our new police force something to do when they're not beating up innocent folk in their homes.

Instead of concentrating on providing power, water and food - why not concentrate on getting the oil flowing instead? People can do without basic commodities, but they can't do without oil, eh? I mean, when temperatures climb above 50 degrees, there's nothing nicer than a cool drink of crude while paddling in an oil bath...

Get the picture? What should be done is obvious to just about everyone in the world - unless of course, the object of the game is not freedom for the Iraqi people but proctecting an 'asset'.

[ 08-26-2003, 10:16 AM: Message edited by: Skunk ]

Timber Loftis · 08-26-2003, 10:12 AM

Skunk, elections are to be held in the next couple of months. Some have already been held. Add this to the Interpol bit, and I just gotta say your rhetoric is fine but get your facts straight.

You're also citing 1999 police data -- which from your very post is listed as "26 officers under investigation."

It's not about training them with this gestapo or that gulag, it's about getting them trained. Again, while some folks just want to whine about how things are done, there are those of us in this world who are out there doing them. Good thing for you guys we exist, 'cause otherwise you'd just talk everything to death.

[ 08-26-2003, 10:16 AM: Message edited by: Timber Loftis ]

Skunk · 08-26-2003, 10:25 AM

Actually, Bremer announced that there could be elections in 2004. That's not definite - just a maybe - and its too long away.

In Kosovo (pop. 1.5 million ), the UN managed to get elections held for the region in less than 5 months after the main conflict (and a mere three months after they took over). This election took place while there was still a severe security threat in the region.

Surely the US/UK can do better than the lazy, slow working machinations of a UN appointed administration? I mean, both countries are more efficient, right? So why havn't the US/UK managed a local election in places of relative calm (with smaller populations), like Basra or Umm Qasr?

Quote:

You're also citing 1999 police data -- which from your very post is listed as "26 officers under investigation."

Oh - that was only for ease. The thing is, it really is *not* difficult to keep posting articles on current Hungarian police abuses: there are soo many of them. So, how about something more current and more detailed?

"Roma in Hungary Denied Justice
On February 18, 2002, the Roma Press Center (RSK) reported that four police officers had been found guilty by the Pest County Court of forced interrogation and causing light bodily harm out of a malicious motive to a Romani man, but had been sentenced inadequately. In October 1999, while attempting to force Mr László Vidák, a Romani man, to admit to a theft, RSK reports, one of the officers wound the strap of his handcuffs around Mr Vidák’s throat, tied him to a chair and placed a plastic bag over Mr Vidák’s head. The officers then beat Mr Vidák with a truncheon on his head, back and legs. The police officers had previously been found guilty by the Buda Regional Court in April of 2001 and given two-year suspended sentences. In its recent ruling, the Pest County Court reduced these sentences to one-year prison terms, suspended for three years.

In other news, on January 3, 2002, RSK also reported that all charges against thirteen police officers accused of brutally attacking a group of mourning Roma in Bag, Pest County, had been dismissed. On February 9, 2001, at approximately 2:00 PM, about eighty police officers raided a family funeral vigil. Allegedly, Ms Edit Lakatos, a young Romani woman, was dragged by her hair to a police car, officers also placed a bag over the head of Mr Sándor Lakatos and then beat him with truncheons and kicked him. In addition it was reported that 40,000 Hungarian forints (approximately 150 euros), which had been saved to pay for the funeral, was taken from Mr Lakatos while he was being kicked by officers. During the attack, officers reportedly forced a sixteen-year-old boy to crush a glass with his hands, badly gashing them on the broken glass, and witnesses also stated that officers had beaten a 7-year-old boy about the head with a truncheon (for more details on the case, see: http://errc.org/rr_nr1_2001/snap21.shtml). According to RSK, in justifying dismissing the charges, the Pest County Prosecutor’s Investigative Office cited a lack of evidence. (Roma Press Center)"
http://www.errc.org/rr_nr1_2002/snap9.shtml

And of course, Hungary is notable enough to get Amnesty International's attention in its 2003 report: http://www.web.amnesty.org/web/web.n...LE/hungary.pdf

[ 08-26-2003, 10:41 AM: Message edited by: Skunk ]

WillowIX · 08-26-2003, 11:21 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Timber Loftis:
*snip* Again, while some folks just want to whine about how things are done, there are those of us in this world who are out there doing them. Good thing for you guys we exist, 'cause otherwise you'd just talk everything to death.

Totally unecessary comment Timber. [img]graemlins/idontagreeatall.gif[/img]

Anyway why should old records be taken into account when deciding this? If the police in Hungary still is doing a lousy job, which I doubt, then here's the chance for them to learn something! I'd support the Iraqi police to be trained in China! Heck perhaps that would be a better alternative.

Timber Loftis · 08-26-2003, 11:33 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by WillowIX:
Totally unecessary comment Timber. [img]graemlins/idontagreeatall.gif[/img]

I don't think so. I think the "damned if you do, damned if you don't" mentality is one of the most salient issues regarding the US in general (as globocop) and Iraq in particular. Now, mayhaps I had too much bile and extended my rant a scooch too far, particularly in bashing other nations/peoples (*that* almost *never* happens

), but I think the overall point is very important and should not be discounted.

WillowIX · 08-26-2003, 11:36 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Timber Loftis:

quote:
Originally posted by WillowIX:
Totally unecessary comment Timber. [img]graemlins/idontagreeatall.gif[/img]

I don't think so. I think the "damned if you do, damned if you don't" mentality is one of the most salient issues regarding the US in general (as globocop) and Iraq in particular. Now, mayhaps I had too much bile and extended my rant a scooch too far, particularly in bashing other nations/peoples (*that* almost *never* happens ), but I think the overall point is very important and should not be discounted. [/QUOTE]Well sure, lucky for the world the US exists. Otherwise everything would be messed up. Very to the point and accurate indeed.

Perhaps you would judge things differently if you had Europe's history.

Sir Taliesin · 08-26-2003, 12:29 PM

I suspect that the Hungarians won't be conducting the training. We will or we will hire some private company to come in and perform the training. As I recall we sent some volunteer Police Officers from some of the large metropolitain departments here in the states to the Baltic region in 1990's to conduct training of police forces in Bosnia and Kosovo.

We are, however, moving some of our military bases out of Germany to some of the former eastern block countries such as Hungary, possibly to the shegrine of the Old Europe, or not, as the case may be.

Oh, and TL [img]graemlins/thumbsup.gif[/img] !

Timber Loftis · 08-26-2003, 12:36 PM

Well, of course I would view it differently if I were European, Willow.

But, the distinction I'm focusing on is between those who do and those who think/talk -- between an attitude of action and one of passivity and procrastination. Think Treebeard and the Ent's council. While I think every action should be well-conceived, I think that taking action is important. It's a personality thing -- when I make a gaff, I immediately move to correct. Sometimes, it ends up worse. More often, I can fix my mistake. While I'm certainly a thinker, I do notice that my nature is to act. And the attitude of action is certainly an American attitude. It just happens to fit well with me.

Now, I think Bush&Co. acts before thinking things through. I think this may be due to the fact that once W himself gets an idea in his head, he doesn't see evidence to the contrary any longer (e.g. WoMD in Iraq, the Nigerian farse fracas). On the other hand, steps must be taken else we will never fix anything in Iraq or extricate our armed forces there (other than eventual outright abandonment). Exporting Iraqi law enforcement to train them elsewhere. Perhaps there are issues with where they took them -- but that would be the case anywhere.

I sincerely believe, without seeing evidence to the contrary, that the issue was to get them trained, not to get them trained in any evil way.

08-26-2003, 09:35 AM	#2
Timber Loftis 40th Level Warrior Join Date: July 11, 2002 Location: Chicago, IL Posts: 11,916	Don't do anything, people bitch. Try to do something, people moan. One wonders why we as Americans have simply gotten over the squawking and squeeling from everyone and just do whatever the frik we want. [img]graemlins/1ponder.gif[/img] __________________

08-26-2003, 10:12 AM	#4
Timber Loftis 40th Level Warrior Join Date: July 11, 2002 Location: Chicago, IL Posts: 11,916	Skunk, elections are to be held in the next couple of months. Some have already been held. Add this to the Interpol bit, and I just gotta say your rhetoric is fine but get your facts straight. You're also citing 1999 police data -- which from your very post is listed as "26 officers under investigation." It's not about training them with this gestapo or that gulag, it's about getting them trained. Again, while some folks just want to whine about how things are done, there are those of us in this world who are out there doing them. Good thing for you guys we exist, 'cause otherwise you'd just talk everything to death. [ 08-26-2003, 10:16 AM: Message edited by: Timber Loftis ] __________________

08-26-2003, 12:29 PM	#9
Sir Taliesin Silver Dragon Join Date: March 4, 2001 Location: Knoxville, TN USA Age: 60 Posts: 1,641	I suspect that the Hungarians won't be conducting the training. We will or we will hire some private company to come in and perform the training. As I recall we sent some volunteer Police Officers from some of the large metropolitain departments here in the states to the Baltic region in 1990's to conduct training of police forces in Bosnia and Kosovo. We are, however, moving some of our military bases out of Germany to some of the former eastern block countries such as Hungary, possibly to the shegrine of the Old Europe, or not, as the case may be. Oh, and TL [img]graemlins/thumbsup.gif[/img] ! __________________ Sir Taliesin<br /><br />Hello... Good bye.

08-26-2003, 12:36 PM	#10
Timber Loftis 40th Level Warrior Join Date: July 11, 2002 Location: Chicago, IL Posts: 11,916	Well, of course I would view it differently if I were European, Willow. But, the distinction I'm focusing on is between those who do and those who think/talk -- between an attitude of action and one of passivity and procrastination. Think Treebeard and the Ent's council. While I think every action should be well-conceived, I think that taking action is important. It's a personality thing -- when I make a gaff, I immediately move to correct. Sometimes, it ends up worse. More often, I can fix my mistake. While I'm certainly a thinker, I do notice that my nature is to act. And the attitude of action is certainly an American attitude. It just happens to fit well with me. Now, I think Bush&Co. acts before thinking things through. I think this may be due to the fact that once W himself gets an idea in his head, he doesn't see evidence to the contrary any longer (e.g. WoMD in Iraq, the Nigerian farse fracas). On the other hand, steps must be taken else we will never fix anything in Iraq or extricate our armed forces there (other than eventual outright abandonment). Exporting Iraqi law enforcement to train them elsewhere. Perhaps there are issues with where they took them -- but that would be the case anywhere. I sincerely believe, without seeing evidence to the contrary, that the issue was to get them trained, not to get them trained in any evil way. __________________

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08-26-2003, 04:27 AM	#1
Skunk Banned User Join Date: September 3, 2001 Location: Amsterdam, The Netherlands Age: 62 Posts: 1,463	Washington is seeking to train thousands of Iraqi police at a military base in Hungary as part of its efforts to restore law and order in Iraq, US officials say. The United States is holding talks with Hungary about using Taszar Air Base to train Iraqis in police skills in the coming months, but no final agreement had been reached. News of the move comes with the Bush administration under increasing domestic pressure to ease the burden on existing forces in Iraq. On Monday, the death toll for US troops in "post-war" Iraq rose to 138 - the same number of troops killed in the conflict up to 1 May, when President Bush declared an end to combat operations. The US army used the Taszar base earlier this year to train more than 100 exiled Iraqis as guides, translators and for other non-combat tasks with the coalition forces which invaded Iraq in March. US officials have set the goal of training and deploying 65,000 Iraqi police officers around the country, a spokeswoman for the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad told Reuters news agency. About 37,000 Iraqi police officers are already working in Iraq, the spokeswoman said, meaning thousands more could require training at Taszar, if Hungary agrees to the arrangement 'Iraqi face' on security Hungary's government is receptive to the idea but is still waiting for a formal request from Washington, the Hungarian foreign ministry told Associated Press. "Of course, any official request would have to be considered further by the government, but something of this nature could help save the Taszar base from closure," spokesman Tamas Toth said. US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has said Iraqis are being trained at an accelerated pace to put "an Iraqi face" on the security forces. "It may well be that a number of them will be trained outside the country," Mr Rumsfeld said on Monday. Earlier this month, the former New York police chief who has been put in charge of rebuilding Iraq's police force said he was making good progress in controlling crime. Bernard Kerik - who was appointed to run the interior ministry - said police had recently broken up four gangs involved in kidnapping Iraqi civilians for ransom. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3181089.stm It just gets better and better, doesn't it? Here's what they will be trained to do: "Discrimination and police violence against Roma and the ill-treatment of asylum seekers and refugees remained persistent problems in Hungary in 1999. Despite the backdrop of systematic human rights violations by state actors targeting minority groups and refugees, Hungary gained NATO membership in March and continued the process of accession with the European Union. Relations between the Roma community and the police deteriorated in 1999 despite pressure from western governments and human rights groups urging the Hungarian government to curb rampant police abuse. In the town of Hajduhadhaz, eastern Hungary, the European Roma Rights Center (ERRC) reported that police routinely beat, verbally abused, and searched the apartments of Roma without cause. Of the fifteen cases opened against police officers in Hajduhadhaz in recent years, all remain either unresolved or ended in acquittals. Following the March 1999 broadcast of a nationally televised news program, Fokusz , about police brutality in Hajduhadhaz, police arrested and beat a Roma man who appeared on the program. Two other Roma men who were interviewed on the program went into hiding fearing retaliation. In response to intense public pressure by local Roma rights groups and the media, the Ministry of Interior admitted on June 18 that Hajduhadhaz had the highest reported level of police violence in Hungary and that half of the town's police force, twenty-six officers, were under investigation for alleged abusive conduct." http://www.hrw.org/wr2k/Eca-11.htm Oh, almost forgot - this comes on top of recruiting some of Saddam's most brutal servants back into action: "BAGHDAD, Aug. 23 -- U.S.-led occupation authorities have begun a covert campaign to recruit and train agents with the once-dreaded Iraqi intelligence service to help identify resistance to American forces here after months of increasingly sophisticated attacks and bombings, according to U.S. and Iraqi officials.... ...Authorities have stepped up the recruitment over the past two weeks, one senior U.S. official said, despite sometimes adamant objections by members of the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council, who complain that they have too little control over the pool of recruits. While U.S. officials acknowledge the sensitivity of cooperating with a force that embodied the ruthlessness of Hussein's rule, they assert that an urgent need for better and more precise intelligence has forced unusual compromises... Hussein's security forces were a suffocating presence in Iraq and still cast a long shadow... http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...2003Aug23.html Someone tell me again how the new Iraqi regime differs from old? We have ex-Saddam loyalists and criminals in the unelected 'provisional government'; we're about to train the police in how to abuse the public and the old secret police are back in action. I'm now waiting for Paul Bremer to grow a black moustache and then the circle will have been completed... [ 08-26-2003, 05:02 AM: Message edited by: Skunk ]

08-26-2003, 10:09 AM	#3
Skunk Banned User Join Date: September 3, 2001 Location: Amsterdam, The Netherlands Age: 62 Posts: 1,463	Oh don't be silly - there's a right way to do things and a wrong way. The current administration has a knack of picking the wrong way at (almost) every possible turn. Instead of giving local dissent a peaceful and legitimate forum in the form of an elected government - the US decides to hire ruthless killers and torturers from the old regime to kill any opposition... well duh! That will win hearts and minds, eh? Let's tackle crime by making sure the police are as brutal as possible - trained by those who know more about brutality than any other police force in the world. That way, when there's a crime - its easy to find the culprit: he's the one wearing a police uniform. Or perhaps we should just 'fire' 1.5 million people leaving them with only one way to feed their families: armed robbery - that should give our new police force something to do when they're not beating up innocent folk in their homes. Instead of concentrating on providing power, water and food - why not concentrate on getting the oil flowing instead? People can do without basic commodities, but they can't do without oil, eh? I mean, when temperatures climb above 50 degrees, there's nothing nicer than a cool drink of crude while paddling in an oil bath... Get the picture? What should be done is obvious to just about everyone in the world - unless of course, the object of the game is not freedom for the Iraqi people but proctecting an 'asset'. [ 08-26-2003, 10:16 AM: Message edited by: Skunk ]

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