BAGHDAD (AP) – U.S. forces battled Iraqi police and gunmen Friday, killing six policemen, after an American raid captured a police lieutenant accused of leading an Iranian-backed militia cell, the military said.
Seven gunmen also died in the fight, a rare open street battle between American troops and policemen. Washington has demanded the government purge its police force of militants, and U.S. and Iraqi authorities have arrested officers in the past for militia links. But the Bush administration said in an assessment Thursday that progress on that front was “unsatisfactory.”
The lieutenant was captured before dawn in eastern Baghdad, but the soldiers came under “heavy and accurate fire” from a nearby Iraqi police checkpoint, as well as intense fire from rooftops and a church, the military said in a statement.
As the Americans fired back, U.S. warplanes struck in front of the police position, without hitting it directly, “to prevent further escalation” of the battle, it said. There were no casualties among the U.S. troops, but seven gunmen and six of the policemen firing on the Americans were killed, the statement said.
Meanwhile, USA Today has gotten its hands on an Army report of the results of the investigation into the Karbala ambush last January that killed five US soldiers. The new details:
•Iraqi police suddenly vanished from the government compound before the shooting started.
•Attackers, evidently briefed on how U.S. forces would defend themselves, bottled up more than three dozen soldiers in a barracks and headquarters complex using a combination of smoke and fragment grenades and satchel charges to blow up Humvees.
•Gunmen knew exactly where to find and abduct U.S. officers.
•Iraqi vendors operating a PX and barbershop went home early.
•A back gate was left unlocked and unguarded.
Is there any rational response to this, other than GET OUT? Yet here are the recommendations from the Army investigation:
Investigators recommended several changes to toughen defensive positions, including the installation of closed-circuit cameras to provide better early warnings, “duress devices” that can allow overrun outposts to signal headquarters, and requirements that any arriving convoy provide identification.
Wow. Sure you can harden up “defensive” positions, but what does it say about the whole project that you’re defending against the police?
For another bizarre aspect of this war between the US and Iraqi police, Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh today said Iraqi security forces “have advanced to a level that it now depends on itself in leading operations against terrorists and outlaws, with backing from Multinational forces. They are in continuous progress to reach the point of totally depending on themselves.â€
The mind boggles. Get. Out. Now.