BAGHDAD, Jan. 16 (UPI) -- The United States is taking a major step to improve Iraqi police training by assigning more than 2,000 Army military police advisers for the task.
The decision is one of the most extensive efforts yet to team Americans with uniformed Iraqis, and is one that could entail significant security risks, reports The New York Times.
The program will begin in Baghdad and expand to provincial and district headquarters in all 18 provinces by the end of the month, the report said. There are reportedly 500 international civilian police advisers and some military police units doing the training.
The goal is to have 135,000 police officers in Iraq by the end of next year and so far the country has 80,000 such officers.
Senior commanders, including Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the highest ranking U.S. officer in Iraq, have vowed to make 2006 "the year of the police." So far, corruption, ineptitude and infiltration in the Iraqi police forces have hampered any U.S. plan to draw down its troops this year, the report said.
