Via the NYT: Iraq Removes Leaders of Special Police

The Iraqi government removed the country’s two most senior police commanders from their posts on Tuesday, in the first broad move against the top leadership of Iraq’s unruly special police forces.

[…]

The reordering of the police forces, beginning with the suspension of an entire Iraqi police brigade this month on suspicions that some members may have permitted or even participated in death squad killings, appeared to be one of the first serious attempts to address some of those American concerns.

The two generals, Rasheed Fleyah and Mahdi Sabeh, both Shiites, had been in their posts since the previous government, under which abuses by largely Shiite police forces began. Iraq’s Sunnis deeply fear the police commandos that grew out of control soon after a coalition of Shiite parties came to power last year.

The inability to establish a credible security apparatus makes either civil war or the breakup of the country all the more likely. Sans the ability of the state to create an acceptable level of order, there is no state. One wonders how long after a US withdrawal the disintegration of Iraq would begin, because there is not evidence of cohesive stability apart from that presence.

The piece also details the ongoing problem with the Sadr militia.