Service Set Up by Coalition Provisional Authority Is Linked to Sectarian Militias and Death Squads
By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, December 25, 2006; Page A11
U.S. military commanders in Iraq are attempting to get under control the Facilities Protection Service, whose 150,000 members are paid to guard the 26 Iraqi ministries and serve as personal security to ministers and important government officials, but also provide manpower for sectarian party militias and death squads.
The Iraq Study Group highlighted the problem earlier this month, describing members of the FPS, an Iraqi force, as having "questionable loyalties and capabilities," and quoting an unnamed senior U.S. official saying they are "incompetent, dysfunctional and subversive."
Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr controls the ministries of health, transportation and agriculture, and FPS units employed by those ministries are "a source of funding and jobs for the Mahdi Army," his militia, according to the study group report.
The latest Defense Department report on Iraq said there is "anecdotal evidence" that FPS personnel "are unreliable and in some cases responsible for violent crimes and other illegal activities." It also described a survey done at the Central Bank of Iraq, which found that of the bank's 1,800 FPS guards, "800 failed to show for work, suggesting that they were either ghost employees or otherwise unfit for such employment."
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