Fear of informants has stoked climate of fear in Baghdad|Knight Ridder

[Rose Siding]

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Fear of informants turning in neighbors to police or militia groups has deeply undermined community trust in many parts of Baghdad.
.....
A word to the police can result in uniformed security officers or even private soldiers in fake uniforms dragging residents from their homes in the middle of the night - without legitimate cause, the victims complain. Angry and confused, their families suspect that neighborhood informants are feeding lies to the security forces to settle personal scores. The raids also have sown doubts that government security forces can protect the people.
.....
Some shop owners say they try not to ask customers questions that they once considered innocuous. Behind closed doors, residents suspect their own relatives of bringing raids to their home.
Working-class neighborhoods that are still ethnically mixed - many others have segregated - are the most vulnerable, said Ihsan Mohammed al Hassan, a sociologist at Baghdad University.
"These people are taken away, and no one knows why," Hassan said. "When other people see that one person's life has been destroyed by a report, the whole community is in fear. They can't trust the police, and they can't trust their neighbor."
.....
Miriam Ali, who's unrelated to Ahmed Ali, said her father had been home only a few days after a long absence when a group of American soldiers charged into the family's house in the southern Baghdad neighborhood of Dora. With them was a man who wore a dark ski mask. He said nothing. His eyes searched the room, looked past her uncle and stopped at her father. The man pointed at the elderly man, and with that, the soldiers dragged her father away, she said.
After a fruitless yearlong search at jails, American bases and police stations, she's resigned that she won't find her father. But as she walks through the neighborhood, she keeps looking for the informant.......

http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/13955182.htm

[bahrbearian]

1. Really how can the Iraqi Police work with any authority ,

we have been occupiers for almost 3 years, we dissolved their police force and army, and they hate us.

[peacetalksforall]

2. Axis of evil - death/dismemberment plus destruction of cultural and

religious treaures plus ss-hitler tactics. Yeah, things are looking up..yaknow .. optimistic.

[bahrbearian]

3. I can't understand why they haven't reached a boiling point already,

Let alone we the American People.

[peacetalksforall]

4. I know - then there is the infrastructure axis of evil - lack of

utilities plus fear of going out or staying in because of constant bombing threats plus ruined businesses, schools, careers.

Democracy, Republican style.*

*I know there are a few Republicans who despise what is going on as much as we do. So, I should change that to Democracy, PNAC-Baron style. But, I'll leave it as Republican for now.