In Iraq, Demand Makes Security Growth Industry

[kskiska]

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Sept. 19 — Politicians may have started negotiating a sweeping proposal to relieve American soldiers of their police duties, but many Iraqis are way ahead of their leaders. They gave up on the Americans some time ago and started paying for their own protection.

Some have turned to political militias, which have reappeared despite an American demand that they be disarmed, while others have turned to dozens of new private companies. Such companies were essentially illegal under Saddam Hussein, but in today's Iraq, business executives now say "security" the way American executives once said "plastics."

The urge for self-protection began as soon as looters started rampaging under the gaze of American soldiers, and it flourished after American occupation officials ordered the populace to disarm while they retreated into fortresses guarded by tanks and Nepalese Gurkhas.

"We had militias ready to protect people, but the Americans came in and dissolved everything and created a power vacuum," said Adel Abdul Mahdi, a senior official in the main Shiite party, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq. He is one of the architects of a plan devised this week to send the American troops back to their bases and turn over police duties to militias working with local civic and tribal leaders under the supervision of the national government.

more…
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/20/international/middleeast/20SECU.html?hp