.It's Now Law & Order: Baghdad for U.S. Troops
BAGHDAD, IRAQ -- When the new U.S.-Iraq security pact takes effect on January 1st, one of the biggest changes will be a shift to what's called "warrant-based targeting." Under the agreement, U.S. forces will no longer conduct unilateral operations -- and must hand over detainees to "competent Iraqi authorities" within 24 hours of detention or arrest.
In practice, that means U.S. commanders will need to secure warrants from Iraqi judges. Lt. Col. Rich Wilson, the commander of the 1st Battalion, 27th Infantry Regiment, told me his unit is setting up "meeting engagements" with the local police and judges to build relationships before the agreement takes effect. "Since October, we've been working these combined security meetings, working with [national police counterparts] on warrant-based targeting. ... we need to make sure they have someone lined up to go to court if needed."
Col. John Hort, commander of the 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, said that also means familiarizing Iraqi law enforcement officials with the kind of forensic evidence U.S. forces collect on insurgent cells.
"One of our key engagements right now are the judges and the police chiefs - working with those two components of law enforcement to gather their support, let them know what our evidence is in terms of how we go after an individual: like fingerprints, explosives analysis on munitions, things that that they don't necessarily have to deal with in this country," he said. "We try to educate them on those components to prosecution so that they are familiar with that and accept that."
In practice, however, things will be a bit more complicated for individual units on the ground. U.S. forces will need to obtain sworn statements -- and find an Iraqi officer to witness and endorse the statements. In the past, "target packets" were not shared with the Iraqis.
"We could talk about the information, we could show them," said Capt. Andrew Slack, a company commander with Task Force 1-6 Infantry. "But we couldn't physically hand them the packet and say 'go execute this.' So the target packet goes away, obviously, but the onus for developing whether a guy is actionable or not is on them more so than on us. We'll still continue to feed them -- within the limits of regulations -- our intelligence. But it'll have to lead to a sworn statement that they will get or have a supervisory role in getting."
Lt. Gen. Lloyd Austin, the head of Multi-National Corps - Iraq, discussed these changes in some detail during a press conference last week. The full transcript is here.
Wired
In practice, that means U.S. commanders will need to secure warrants from Iraqi judges. Lt. Col. Rich Wilson, the commander of the 1st Battalion, 27th Infantry Regiment, told me his unit is setting up "meeting engagements" with the local police and judges to build relationships before the agreement takes effect. "Since October, we've been working these combined security meetings, working with [national police counterparts] on warrant-based targeting. ... we need to make sure they have someone lined up to go to court if needed."
Col. John Hort, commander of the 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, said that also means familiarizing Iraqi law enforcement officials with the kind of forensic evidence U.S. forces collect on insurgent cells.
"One of our key engagements right now are the judges and the police chiefs - working with those two components of law enforcement to gather their support, let them know what our evidence is in terms of how we go after an individual: like fingerprints, explosives analysis on munitions, things that that they don't necessarily have to deal with in this country," he said. "We try to educate them on those components to prosecution so that they are familiar with that and accept that."
In practice, however, things will be a bit more complicated for individual units on the ground. U.S. forces will need to obtain sworn statements -- and find an Iraqi officer to witness and endorse the statements. In the past, "target packets" were not shared with the Iraqis.
"We could talk about the information, we could show them," said Capt. Andrew Slack, a company commander with Task Force 1-6 Infantry. "But we couldn't physically hand them the packet and say 'go execute this.' So the target packet goes away, obviously, but the onus for developing whether a guy is actionable or not is on them more so than on us. We'll still continue to feed them -- within the limits of regulations -- our intelligence. But it'll have to lead to a sworn statement that they will get or have a supervisory role in getting."
Lt. Gen. Lloyd Austin, the head of Multi-National Corps - Iraq, discussed these changes in some detail during a press conference last week. The full transcript is here.
Wired
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