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Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq

December 2007
Report to Congress
In accordance with the
Department of Defense Appropriations Act 2007
(Section 9010, Public Law 109-289)

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Section 2—Iraqi Security Forces Training and Performance

2.2. Ministry of Interior

The MoI forces consist of the Iraqi Police Service (IPS), the NP, the Directorate of Border Enforcement (DBE), and other, smaller forces. The MoI also continues to consolidate the Facilities Protection Services (FPS) that were spread among the various ministries. The number of assigned Iraqi MoI forces has grown by 27,040 in this reporting period, including 23,571 IPS, 1,937 NP, and 1,365 DBE personnel. The number of personnel employed by the MoI, including civilian staff, ministry FPS and other elements, is now approximately 372,482. However, the accountability of personnel remains an issue, and as of August 2007, annualized attrition rates are estimated to be 17% for the IPS, 15% for the NP, 6% for the traffic police and 6% for the DBE.

The MoI continues to improve its capabilities, showing steady but uneven progress. While force generation, operational success, and reform efforts proceed, the Ministry remains hampered by corruption, sectarianism and logistics deficiencies. MoI Internal Affairs, the Inspector General and organizational staffs have increased efforts to reduce corruption and sectarianism. They are training more investigators and have conducted several internal investigations that resulted in the firing or removal of commanders implicated in corrupt or sectarian behaviors. Border enforcement is being enhanced by a ground port of entry improvement plan. Weapons accountability and warehouse management has improved. Most other logistics functions, however, are making slow progress.

Ministry of Interior Transition Issues

Ministry Capacity Development

Minister of Interior Bolani is committed to reforming the MoI but is hampered by a lack of political support, both inside and outside his Ministry. Coalition advisors continue to report inconsistent improvement in the MoI’s ability to perform key ministry functions, such as force management, developing, resourcing and implementing plans and policies, personnel management, acquisition, logistics and sustainment and training. Reducing corruption and improving professionalism are also focus areas.

Force Management. The Ministry of Interior Transition Team (MoI-TT) is working closely with its Iraqi counterparts in ensuring appropriate force management but challenges remain. Aggressive growth of police forces to meet present challenges, while continuing to recruit for baseline manning replenish-ment, requires a mature, integrated recruiting, screening, training, equipping and basing system that does not yet fully exist. The current IPS assigned strength is approximately 255,000 police, and 46,466 additional personnel have been requested by eight provinces. The MoI has issued hiring orders for 12,028 (23%) of these personnel while orders are pending for the rest. Most notably, police force expansions continue on an unprogrammed basis. Increases in provincial police authorizations occur in an ad-hoc fashion based on requests from Provincial Directors of Police (PDoPs) or local government officials. Although hiring is slowed by the Implementation and Follow-up Committee for National Reconciliation vetting process through which many recruits must pass, police payrolls continue to swell. The MoI headquarters has no mechanism to correctly match the limited funding it receives from the national budget with valid requirements and growth projections.¹⁹ The Baghdad IPS expansion plan is meeting the goals for recruitment, hiring orders, training and equipping. The PDoP and Patrol Commanders’ formal request to recruit is for a total of 13,075 personnel to support patrol police (5,500) and station police (7,575). The recruiting objective for the Baghdad IPS expansion plan is to hire an additional 12,641 personnel by March 20, 2008. In support of this expansion, the Civilian Police Assistance Transition Team (CPATT) is building 13 expedient police stations. As of this reporting period, two have been completed. The MoI provides life support to these new stations.

Resource Management. The MoI is currently in the process of developing its 2008 budget, which will include separate accounts for the Baghdad Police College, the Higher Institute, the National Police, the Facilities Protection Service and the Patrol Police. This will result in greater ease of budget execution by, but less oversight of, these units. The MoI’s human resources (HR) Reform Committee has developed a plan to reform the HR systems of the Ministry, with a particular focus on linking HR and training manage-ment. In addition, deployment of an automated Iraqi-funded HR and payroll system, “e-ministry,” is in Phase I of a three-phased fielding plan, and the MoI HR depart-ment has started populating the database. In the meantime, MoI and MNSTC-I officials are coordinating with the GoI to ensure all 2007 funds are spent. Since the funds reside in several MoI spending units, approval by the Iraqi Council of Representatives (CoR) is required to shift under-spent funds from one account to another. Coalition advisors are unable to determine if the CoR will approve reapportionment of MoI 2007 funds.

Personnel. The MoI IPS, Internal Affairs and Administration and Finance Directorates experience systemic problems in recruiting, hiring and accountability processes. It is unknown how many of the approximately 376,346 employees on the payroll are regularly reporting for duty. Hiring processes are cut across too many agencies with recruit vetting occurring at numerous stages and to unreliable standards. The result is incomplete hiring packets that lack critical information such as the results of medical screenings. Ongoing reform of the Iraqi HR and payroll system will assist in addressing this issue.

Materiel Acquisition. Previous MoI materiel acquisition actions have reaped benefits during this period. US$192 million worth of equipment procured through FMS with 2006 funds started arriving in October 2007, including nearly one million rounds of ammunition, and will continue to flow for the next several months. In addition, the MoI is seeking to buy equipment with its own funds from China and other sources to fill at least some of these shortages. The Prime Minister, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Finance and Minister of Interior continue to work with the CoR to move end-of-year MoI 2007 funds into acquisition accounts to ensure adequate purchases for an expanding police force, with the intention of executing some of this funding through the FMS program.

The CPATT continues to deliver organizational clothing and individual equipment (OCIE) for distribution by the MoI in accordance with priorities established by Multi-National Corps – Iraq (MNC-I). During this quarter, OCIE for the 15,000 IPS expansion initiative (minus the Baghdad force expansion) was transferred to the MoI. The MoI is also purchasing vehicles and parts through direct contracting and FMS cases. The first shipment of 2,600 vehicles procured through an FMS case is tentatively scheduled for December 2007 with final delivery in April 2008. In total, twenty-eight Letters of Request (LORs) have been developed for nearly US$1 billion worth of equipment, ammunition, weapons, life support, communication and vehicles. The minister has signed 19 LORs; six are being staffed within the Ministry. The Minister also recently signed a Letter of Offer and Acceptance, which includes the biometric “jumpkits” critical for the recruitment and accountability processes.

Logistics & Sustainment. The MoI logistics and sustainment structure is based on a civilian policing model for support and is designed to provide maintenance, transporta-tion and supply support at national, provincial, regional and local levels in order to sustain civil security training and operations. During this period, the MoI has established a monthly logistics status report that requires the provinces to report their equipment authorization and on-hand status. The reports cover major pieces of equipment, weapons, communications and ammunition. The reports are becoming increasingly accurate and timely.

MoI equipment accountability continues to improve. Equipment procured by MNSTC-I has been delivered to the Baghdad Police College warehouses since January 2007 allowing the MoI to manage and issue equipment. U.S. and Iraqi representatives conduct joint inventories of U.S.-funded equipment deliveries. Once inventoried by the MoI warehouse supervisor, an MoI representative signs for the equipment. A joint inventory of serial numbered items such as weapons is performed and forwarded to MNSTC-I. The MoI maintains an automated database of hand receipts and serial numbers as well as a manual backup system. Coalition forces formerly provided all warehousing and distribution for the MoI through a network of eight contracted warehouses. The MoI has opened national, regional and provincial warehouses, which have allowed the Coalition to close five warehouses and reduce reliance on the complex at Abu Ghraib. The MoI has successfully assumed responsibility for most life-support requirements for operational forces, signing Iraqi-funded FMS LORs for seven of the eight life-support contracts.

MNSTC-I continues to work on developing other sustainment capabilities at the MoI. The MoI has improved maintenance policies, plans and processes, and is currently negotiat-ing to assume responsibility for maintenance augmentation contracts in their next budget submission cycle. However, organic mainte-nance capability is embryonic and will take considerable time and investment to achieve self-sustainment. The MoI has assumed 100% responsibility for ammunition management, forecasting and procurement, though timely distribution remains a problem. Ammunition and weapon purchases through Iraqi-funded FMS cases and other direct contracts have resolved procurement sourcing issues. Fuel shortfalls, however, remain a significant problem and limit mission performance. Allocations from the MoO are inadequate to meet growing requirements, and funding levels from the Ministry of Finance and underresourcing by the MoI compound the financial strain on field units, which are forced to buy fuel at local market prices by diverting funds from other accounts.

Training and Development. MoI training and development efforts proceed against signifi-cant backlogs of hired but untrained police. Current and projected basic police and officer training requirements greatly exceed existing training base capabilities. All police are provided with a minimum 80-hour course as soon as possible after assignment; corre-spondingly, the training backlog for the full 400-hour training course is lengthening as the force expands. The Baghdad Police College, the source of all officers, was originally designed to provide leadership for a police force of approximately 60,000 and is woefully inadequate for today’s force of over 250,000. Although the MoI is greatly expanding the class sizes and cycles for its nine-month course, significant backlogs exist for officer and leadership training. The GoI is considering including the CLCs in the training pipeline, which would further delay generation of originally programmed forces. Consequently, the Coalition and the MoI have formed a joint working group to develop training base expansion solutions that include planning for construction of ten new training centers and the expansion of seven existing training centers, all eventually working with a common curriculum to standardize training. These include new officer colleges in Mosul and Basrah, new provincial training centers in Muthanna and Maysan Provinces, and the expansion of facilities at the Baghdad Police College, Mosul Provincial Training Center and Habbaniyah. Additionally, CPATT and the MoI are seeking to maximize officer generation by recalling select former Iraqi Army and Iraqi Police Officers into the MoI forces, following a three-week Officer Transition Integration Program (OTIP). Since July 2007, the MoI has completed six OTIP courses, one six-month officer course, and one nine-month course resulting in 901 officers added to the force. Officer training attrition is 7% across all Iraqi Police officer training programs. In addition to basic enlisted and officer training, specialized training is ongoing in fields such as leadership and technical skills; the MoI Training and Qualification Center, working with the MoI HR Directorate, is seeking to link such professional training with career progression.

Corruption. Corruption and sectarian behavior continue to be evident in the MoI. The MoI has taken increasingly aggressive actions, however, to uncover perpetrators and reduce their impact. Internal Affairs Directorate investigations have led to the forcible retirement of 40 officers in the rank of lieutenant colonel and above; 30 Brigadier Generals arrested, fired or forced into retirement for corruption; and several thousand personnel fired, 700 of whom were fired based on criminal records information from the Automated Fingerprint Identifica-tion System. During this period, 195 police were fired for militia activity and involve-ment in corruption. As a result of the firings, the head of Internal Affairs and his family have received death threats. To date, 1,269 Internal Affairs investigators have been trained with future plans of training a total of 3,000. By the end of 2007, the expectation is to have an additional 300 trained.

Embedded Advisory Support

U.S. and Coalition forces continue to expand advisory presence within the MoI uniformed forces down to the battalion and station levels. The size of any specific advisory team varies depending on area coverage, unit size, unit readiness assessment, regional considerations and unit types, but teams typically are comprised of about 10 to 15 personnel. There are 247 Police Transition Teams (PTTs) assigned to the Iraqi Police, including 74 teams covering police commands at the district and provincial levels. Twenty-eight border transition teams are assigned to about two-thirds of the DBE units at the battalion level and above; 40 National Police Transition Teams are assigned to over 80% of NP units at the battalion level and above, and the MoI Transition Team has 93 Coalition military, State Department civilian and contracted advisors assigned to the various directorates in the Ministry.

Approximately 17% of required transition teams for MoI forces have not yet been established. One reason for this gap is the level of funding for, and availability of, International Police Advisors (IPAs) and availability of military personnel for the PTTs. Each team includes civilian contractors, many of whom are former law enforcement professionals or ex-military, who are hired under a DoD-funded, Department of State-managed contract. IPAs provide civilian law enforcement expertise in criminal investigation and police station management. PTTs travel to stations to mentor the Iraqi Police. Larger stations and stations in high threat areas are the highest priority because there are not enough IPA or military assets to allow for full coverage of all provincial and local headquarters and stations. Baghdad currently has a 1:1 ratio of PTTs to stations; the other provinces have rations as high as 1:7. However, almost all senior MoI commands are now paired with transition teams.

Ministry of Interior Forces

Operational Planning and Execution

Improved leadership during this period enabled the MoI Operations Directorate’s formulation of an effective security plan for three national events including the Commemorations of the 7th and 12th Imams and Ramadan. These three events proceeded mostly without major incident. Among the lessons identified were the need for clearly established command and control lines and procedures. MoI and Coalition emphasis is being directed at the Provincial Joint Coordination Centers for standardization and automation. Concentrated National Command Center mentoring is being conducted by Danish police and Coalition military trainers.

Iraqi Police Service

The IPS constitutes the majority of MoI forces assigned throughout Iraq and is comprised of approximately 256,000 patrol, station and traffic personnel. The IPS mission is to enforce the rule of law, safeguard the public and provide local security. However, since IPS members tend to be locally based, the extent of militia intimidation among the IPS is often a function of general militia influence in that area. Some IPS forces also remain prone to intimidation by, or collusion with, criminal gangs. Due to combat loss, normal wear, attrition, maintenance and theft, a significant portion of IPS equipment may no longer be available or operational. These factors, as well as growth of police authorization levels, will require continued equipment support, which underlines the importance of a responsive FMS program.

National Police

Because the creation of five specialty units totaling an increased authorization of 5,974 personnel has drawn on regular NP units for their manning, regular NP units are filled at only 80% of authorized levels. NP present-for-duty strength remains stable at an average of 60% of authorized strength levels; how-ever, the NP has developed a replenishment plan to increase its present-for-duty rates and is processing more officers through the Baghdad Police College to increase the percentage of officers. The NP is also reaching out to Sunnis and former regime officers to better reflect all sectors of the Iraqi population and has recently changed the mix of Sunni and Shi’a in the command teams. Of the two division commanders, one is Sunni and one is Shi’a; at the brigade level, 73% of the commanders are Shi’a and 27% are Sunni; at the battalion level, 82% are Shi’a and 18% are Sunni. Public opinion polls show the Iraqi perception of the NP as “capable and professional” has increased 18 percentage points between September and October 2007, to 56%.

The MoI is currently undertaking a basing initiative which re-postures NP units from their current locations in Baghdad, Samarra and Basrah to other areas of operation. As units are no longer needed in Baghdad, the NP will eventually “regionalize.” The NP commanding general and the MoI are focusing on long-term plans for re-basing units inside Baghdad and in select provinces.

The Coalition continues to implement the four-phased NP Transformation Program intended to address the NP’s high degree of sectarian behavior and limited progression in operational readiness. Phase II of this program involving standardized collective training in the areas of human rights, the rule of law, democratic policing, police ethics and counterinsurgency tactics was completed in November 2007, except for newly formed units which are being scheduled for training. The eight-week Phase III training began on October 20, 2007, with an initial class of 450 personnel and will continue through 2009. During this phase, NP battalions attend leader-focused courses on criminal investigation, crowd control, weapons handling, dignitary protection, intelligence operations and physical fitness. Training is based on the tactics, techniques and procedures of Italy’s Carabinieri and is conducted with their assistance. Phase IV involves forward positioning to train for contingencies such as security for pilgrimages, natural disasters and national emergencies. Of the nine brigades that have completed Phase II, eight brigades are effectively employed around Iraq.

Directorate of Border Enforcement and Directorate of Ports of Entry

The DBE supports two key missions: policing ports of entry (PoEs) to ensure the smooth transition of legal goods and persons, and interdicting illegal traffic, including smuggling and movement of terrorists and foreign fighters, within and between PoEs. The DBE is structured into five regional commands, each responsible for both PoE control and border overwatch and patrol within its area. In order to complete the latter task, the DBE is in the process of manning and constructing up to 585 border forts encircling Iraq with the goal of creating a line-of-sight perimeter. This results in a border police force structure of 12 brigades and 44 battalions spread across the five DBE regions. Current force structure assignments, since the integration of PoE into the DBE, are based on the regional command system, under which individual PoE Modified Tables of Organization and Equipment (MTOEs) are supplemented by modular battalions capable of surveillance, patrol and reinforcement, based on border-area size and threat assessment. However, greater integration of technological solutions may alleviate some of the manpower-heavy requirements of these force-planning assumptions.

The DBE continues to make progress in its ability to secure Iraq’s borders. Senior leadership has begun a village engagement program to combat a recent increase in enemy propaganda and intimidation along the border. Units demonstrate an impressive ability to plan and execute all operations with which they have been tasked. Civil Customs Inspectors have improved their performance regarding inspection procedures. Despite these improvements, the DBE continues to be hampered by funding issues. DBE units suffer from inadequate fuel supplies, lack of maintenance capability and poor logistical support, poor maintenance of facilities, equipment shortages and officer and NCO shortages. Many of the DBE personnel are locally recruited in the border areas and are sometimes complicit with smuggling efforts. Any unprogrammed growth of border police within the DBE will exacerbate funding shortfalls for logistics and sustainment.

The PoE Directorate is improving its management of 14 land PoEs, four airports and four seaports. These improvements are part of a larger effort to disrupt the flow of terrorists and foreign terrorists and provide the Iraqi border forces with an improved capability to enhance the security of borders and PoEs. The MoI appointed a permanent Director of Ports of Entry in August 2007 following an 18-month period during which the PoE Directorate was headed by acting directors who were ineffective in developing and implementing plans. In addition, the Directorate opened an upgraded port of Al Qa’im on November 15, 2007 providing a major border crossing point with Syria. Enhancements include new equipment for screening vehicles and people along with around-the-clock oversight by Coalition forces and border advisors. In the near term, improvements are also being implemented on PoEs at Rabea’a, Wahleed, Trebil and Baghdad International Airport. PoE improvements will disrupt the in-flow of foreign terrorists and facilitators, and provide the GoI with an improved capability to secure Iraq’s borders.

Facilities Protection Services

The Facility Protection Service Reform Law, which directs consolidation of the Facilities Protection Services (FPS) under the MoI (minus those elements working for Ministries of Oil and Electricity, and the Supreme Juridical Council) and establishes responsibil-ity for provision of salaries, was passed by the CoR in November 2007. The law is now with the Prime Minister for signature. Despite not having formal passage of the law and having no additional funding for the potential increases, the MoI continues to press toward consolidation. The FPS directorate has continued to demonstrate significant institutional capability. They have forecasted their budget, acquired training ammunition and conducted a live-fire exercise for the first time in over a year. The MoI FPS strength is currently 19,149 personnel. Additionally, the FPS is increasing its ability to request, procure, receive and distribute equipment. The FPS is expanding its training capacity and developing its training curriculum. Training capacity should increase from 320 seats per class to approximately 1,050 seats per class on January 1, 2008.

National Information and Investigation Agency

The National Information and Investigation Agency (NIIA) is the lead intelligence apparatus of the MoI. The organization consists of a National Headquarters, 15 provincial bureaus, six regional bureaus, 56 district offices, and offices at nine border PoEs. NIIA intelligence analysis and investigations enable intelligence supported police operations across the MoI. A recent surge in manpower authorizations swelled NIIA strength from 2,800 in August 2007 to 4,600 by the end of September. New NIIA mission areas are covered by a Counter-terrorism Directorate, an Internet Crimes Unit, an Institutions and Universities Unit and a Foreign Embassies Unit. Based on initial equipment authorizations, NIIA personnel have been issued 100% of body armor, 87% of weapons and 62% of authorized vehicles. Additional equipping requirements are being reviewed. NIIA effectiveness is hampered by an inefficient logistics processes, weak command and control systems, a primitive training base and continued militia infiltration and intimidation. The latter severely affects effectiveness as employees and leaders are hamstrung in their willingness and ability to share intelligence, conduct meaningful analysis and investigations and target militia and insurgent organizations and individuals.