Bremer Sets Conditions For Paramilitary Force

BAGHDAD, Nov. 4 -- The U.S. administrator of Iraq has decided to conditionally support the creation of an Iraqi-led paramilitary force composed of former employees of the country's security services and members of political party militias, according to U.S. and Iraqi officials.

Iraq's U.S.-appointed Governing Council wants the force, which would pursue resistance fighters who have eluded American troops, to include a domestic intelligence-gathering unit and to have broad powers to conduct raids and interrogate suspects. Such characteristics would make the proposed force different from those created under other security initiatives undertaken by the Americans, who until now had expressed opposition to the idea.

The council leaders contend that Iraq's municipal police departments are too weak -- and American soldiers too lacking in local knowledge -- to combat the supporters of former president Saddam Hussein, Islamic militants and foreign guerrillas who are attacking American forces and Iraqis cooperating with the U.S.-led occupation. "We need a security force that is run by Iraqis, that is more heavily armed than the police and is able to act quickly," said a senior official of the Iraqi National Congress, whose leader, Ahmed Chalabi, has participated in discussions about the new unit.

Although the U.S. administrator, L. Paul Bremer, had initially opposed the creation of a paramilitary force under the control of the country's interim interior minister, he has softened his position as attacks, particularly on Iraqi targets, have increased. Bremer no longer has "any objection in principle" to the force, but wants to ensure several conditions are met in vetting, training and supervising the participants, a senior U.S. official here said.

The Governing Council implored the U.S. government Tuesday for more authority to deal with security issues, saying in a letter to President Bush that Iraqis "are more able than others to handle this matter."

"We appeal to you, Mr. President, to transfer more authority to Iraqis, so they can run their own affairs and combat the forces of evil that are trying to destabilize Iraq," Jalal Talabani, the current holder of the council's rotating presidency, wrote in a letter of condolence to Bush in response to the deaths of 15 American soldiers in a missile strike on a transport helicopter.

As the council made its plea to Bush, Iraq was wracked by another day of violence. Three explosions, caused by mortars or rockets, occurred inside the supposedly secure headquarters zone of the occupation authority in Baghdad, wounding four people, military officials said. One soldier from the Army's 1st Armored Division was killed by a roadside bomb in the capital. And in the northern city of Mosul, an Iraqi judge was shot and killed outside his home.

The escalating violence prompted Spain, which is contributing 1,300 troops to the U.S.-led military force, to withdraw most of its diplomatic staff from Iraq. Britain, the second-biggest contributor to the force, said one of its marines was killed by hostile fire on Friday, the first fatality in more than a month among the 10,500 British military personnel in Iraq.

The unit that the Governing Council wants to create would be the most powerful domestic security force in Iraq, fueling concern among some U.S. officials that it could be used for undemocratic purposes, such as stifling political dissent, as such forces do in other Arab nations.

Council leaders said they wanted the force to be drawn primarily from former members of the military and police, as well as members of the security and intelligence wings of five political organizations: the Iraqi National Accord, the Iraqi National Congress, the Shiite Muslim Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq and two large Kurdish parties, the Kurdistan Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan.

"We have very well-established intelligence networks," the Iraqi National Congress official said. "If we can act on that information right away with a strike force, instead of waiting for the Americans to receive our reports and act on it, we can catch a lot more people than the Americans are now."

Occupation authority officials have expressed concern that such a force would give the five political groups unrivaled power in the country's internal security apparatus. But U.S. and British officials involved in security matters here say they believe the risks are outweighed by the potential gain of having Iraqis assume a more active role in hunting down resistance fighters. Until now, Iraqi police officers, most of whom lack adequate training and equipment, have been reluctant to take up that task.

"It would be good to have a group of Iraqis who are well-trained and well-armed and well-disciplined participating in the fight," one occupation authority official said. "Every bit helps."

Bremer would approve, the senior official said, if the members were carefully screened by the Interior Ministry and by the occupation authority, and received police training, not military instruction. In addition, the official said, Bremer would require that command-and-control issues with U.S. forces be resolved and that the force could not grow beyond more than a few thousand members.

Political party security organs and other militias could not join the force en masse, but members could join as individuals, the official said. "We're not going to have a process whereby militias are institutionalized here," the senior official said. If that happens, he said, "we will not have a unified Iraq at the end of the day."

Setting up this force, the official said, "will have to done very carefully."

Although Bush administration officials want to increase Iraqi involvement in pursuing resistance fighters, the entities created so far by the occupation authority -- a police force, a force to guard buildings, border police, a civil defense corps and an army -- are all subservient to Bremer. The civil defense units, which are recruited and trained by American soldiers, take their orders from U.S. commanders. While the police have more autonomy, they usually do not involve themselves in hunting down resistance fighters.

The creation of an Iraqi-run paramilitary unit would be a significant step toward giving Iraqis more power to tackle the escalating guerrilla activity and rampant crime that have shaken the faith of many Iraqis in the U.S.-led effort to reconstruct their country and form a democratic government.

"We need to be equal partners with the Americans in promoting security," said Adel Abdel-Mehdi, a senior leader with the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, whose militia, the Badr Brigades, has been patrolling cities in southern Iraq. "They want us to take responsibility. They need to give us the authority."

In his letter to Bush, Talabani wrote that "Iraqis are more able than others to handle this matter because they are well aware of the course of events in Iraq, more knowledgeable about the situation, the complexities of Iraqi society and the nature of Saddam Hussein's terrorist regime."

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