U.S. Plan for Iraqi Force Surprises Senator

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Army Lt. Gen. David H. Petraeus, the new top U.S. commander in Iraq, told Congress that he might supplement efforts to secure Baghdad using the Iraqi Facilities Protection Service, a 150,000-man force that guards Iraqi government agencies. But that service is widely considered unreliable, and elements were described in July by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki as "more dangerous than the militias," according to Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.).

"The prime minister said he wanted to get rid of the FPS as fast as possible," Reed said this week, recalling his meeting with Maliki in Baghdad last summer. There are "bad elements" in FPS units that "are carrying out murders and kidnappings . . . (and) attacking the infrastructure that they are supposedly protecting," Reed said in his trip report about what Maliki had told him. "Because of the FPS," Reed wrote, Maliki said that "some governmental ministries' guards are more dangerous than the militias."

The FPS was formed in 2003 by order of L. Paul Bremer, then administrator of the Coalition Provisional Authority, to protect the 27 Iraqi ministries and their facilities throughout Iraq. Each minister, who generally represents one of Iraq's political parties, has his or her own FPS unit, whose armed members wear military uniforms.

The Iraq Study Group described FPS members as having "questionable loyalties and capabilities." It quoted an unnamed senior U.S. official as saying that they are "incompetent, dysfunctional and subversive," with some serving the manpower needs of sectarian party militias and death squads.

Reed said in an interview that, with security being the main concern of President Bush in pressing for additional U.S. troops in Baghdad, he was "surprised" that Petraeus would describe FPS units, also known as ministerial security forces, as assisting in the protection of the city. The Senate confirmed Petraeus yesterday as the new top U.S. commander in Iraq.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/26/AR2007012601494.html