One tough police chief in Fallujah
U.S. Marines in Fallujah told me on Tuesday that the city's security can be measured by the quality of its local police, not by the number of violent incidents taking there every week.
Most of the 1,600 now on patrol in this Sunni city are Shiite men recruited from Baghdad, but more locals are volunteering and they hope to have more than 2,000 officers equipped with weapons and vehicles within the next couple months.
Fallujah's police chief is a tough man and just what the city needs, according to one Marine. A few weeks ago he showed himself to be fearless and imaginative - the kind of commander the Marines respect.
The chief was formerly an Iraqi army officer from Baghdad. He volunteered for the Fallujah job after the fall of Saddam Hussein and was fearless enough to drive his own car around the city.
One day recently armed men forced his vehicle to the side of the road. Not bothering to find out if they wanted to kill or kidnap him, or merely steal his car, the police chief drew his weapon and shot one of them.
The assailants roared away... but the police chief followed. He found their vehicle abandoned a short time later, and followed a blood trail into a nearby house. But the gunmen were nowhere to be found.
Then, the Marine told me, relishing the moment, the police chief set fire to the abandoned car.
I saw the police chief at a meeting of the town council. Several of its members were complaining about being searched by his police before being allowed to enter the building.
The chief told them they themselves had given him instructions at their last meeting to search everyone and that's what he was doing. Besides, he said, he hadn't seen most of them before because they weren't normally at council meetings.
The council fell silent for a moment, and then moved on to the next item on their agenda.
Still, he did seem to have one fault. He refused to talk directly with the press because he'd been misquoted too often in the past.
Saddam alleges that he was beaten in custody
EMAIL THIS
advertisement
Slide Show
- Life beyond the violence
Suicide attacks and murders due to sectarian conflict continue around Iraq. See how residents live their lives amid the attacks.
Read the Nightly News blog
