New Rules in Iraq Add Police Work to Troops’ Jobs

BAGHDAD — In late November, around the time the security agreement between the American and Iraqi governments was ratified, an order came down to Company C at its Sadr City outpost.

In accordance with the agreement’s new rules on searches and detentions, troops from Company C of the First Battalion, 35th Armor Regiment, were to begin operating under a policy called “warrant-based targeting.”

Up to that time, First Lt. Jamen K. Miller’s platoon had been the most prolific in the company when it came to arrests, seizing more than half of those captured in the past seven months. But he soon found himself explaining to an Iraqi officer that, yes, a certain man his platoon had declined to arrest was a bad guy, but that nothing could be done yet without a warrant.

“The gears of the system,” Lieutenant Miller said of those first few days, “looked like they were coming to a halt.”

In many ways, Sadr City, the sprawling Shiite quarter in northeastern Baghdad, is on the front line of the recent security agreement. Since the invasion of Iraq in 2003, American forces have relied heavily on mass arrests without charges of people suspected of being insurgents.

Tens of thousands of Iraqis were detained and some held for years, in a practice that Americans insisted was necessary but that was strongly condemned by human rights groups and Iraqis.

But starting Thursday, American soldiers will be required to secure arrest warrants, a change welcomed as an important step toward Iraqi sovereignty but one that also raises concerns that the longer and more complicated arrest process could jeopardize recent gains in safety here.

Still, insurgents are taking cover in the vast slums of Sadr City and the holdouts are being tracked down, one by one, though it is not entirely certain how all of this will work in the new year.

“It’s all being defined as we go,” said Maj. Rich Ramsey, who works on a task force that is addressing some of the changes with the Third Brigade Combat Team, Fourth Infantry Division, in Baghdad.

After years of quick-response raids, American troops are having to adjust to gumshoe work, which involves lots of conversations with civilians about who has done what in the neighborhood. Though a judge makes the decision on what is needed for a warrant, it typically requires at least two sworn statements by witnesses to a crime, American officers said.

Many of these witnesses will have to testify before Iraqi investigators, judges or members of the security forces, depending on a trust that has been violated countless times in the past, often violently.

An Iraqi who had been kidnapped this year told Lieutenant Miller recently that he would sign a statement against his captors, as long as his identity was kept from any Iraqi. That will probably cease to be an option now that Americans must conduct all operations with Iraqi forces.

Obtaining warrants can be a frustratingly long process. First Lt. Guy L. Allsop of Company C said that he had submitted 18 warrant requests since the agreement had been passed. Weeks later, one had been approved.

After an arrest, the detainee has to be turned over to Iraqi authorities within 24 hours, and the Iraqis have to bring the case to a judge, who rules on whether the detainee should be held or released.

Some Iraqi Army officers said they worried about the new rules.

“There will be more steps,” said Maj. Hasoon S. Hussein al-Zoubadi, an officer whose unit shares an outpost with Company C. “It will make it harder for us and easier for the Mahdi Army,” the militia run by the anti-American cleric Moktada al-Sadr.

Actually, the agreement changes almost nothing for the Iraqi security forces; they are supposed to have been operating under the warrant-based system since 2007. The frequently close relationship between the armies can muddle the different operating procedures.

In recent months, many Iraqi officers have learned to take warrants seriously, said Maj. Dex Davis, an officer on an American team embedded with the Rusafa Area Command, which oversees operations in eastern Baghdad, including Sadr City.

Iraqi judges have threatened to prosecute officers for detaining on inadequate or false evidence, Major Davis said. Pressure is coming from the other side, too: Iraqi investigators have been attacked in assassination attempts by people who had been detained only to be released by judges.

The Iraqis have become slower and more meticulous just as the Americans, accustomed to quick results, are entering the process.

“The C.F. are going a little fast for the Iraqis,” said Major Davis, referring to the coalition forces. “The Iraqis are saying, ‘Why rush this? Let’s get it right the first time so when we get this guy, let’s have enough to prosecute him.’ ”

Guidelines have come down from division headquarters throughout December, indicating that there may be more breathing room than it originally appeared, calming the concerns of officers like Lieutenant Miller.

A warrant is still needed for an arrest, the company was told, but something called a detention order could be obtained, sort of a warrant after the fact. This option, which still requires that evidence be presented to a judge within 24 hours, was spoken of with relief by American officers, who worried that suspects could escape capture while detective work was being done.

But Major Davis said that as the Iraqi police gradually took over security operations from the Iraqi Army in Sadr City, judges would be likely to grant fewer and fewer detention orders.

The security agreement also states that a warrant is not needed to search a house in “cases of actual combat operations,” or when troops are in immediate danger, exceptions that could be interpreted broadly.

But there is no question that Company C’s freedom to operate is going to be curtailed, at least somewhat. With that in mind, the First Battalion has been trying to complete missions, like general house-to-house searches, that will soon become far more complicated, if not impossible.

In mid-December, scouts from the battalion were trying to gather statements for a warrant on a man considered a valuable target when they happened upon him by chance. So they did what they had been doing freely for nearly six years: they detained him on the spot.

Capt. Lloyd B. Osafo of Company C acknowledged that an arrest like this would probably not be possible in the new year. But, he said, there is no way to be certain. “Who knows if the Iraqis are going to follow all of this to a T?” he asked. “That’s my personal opinion about all this: who knows?”
NYT