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Iraqi Police re-open Northeast station two

Photo By Spc. Leigh Campbell | Iraqi Police cut the ribbon to the new and rebuilt IP station in northeast Mosul June...... read more read more

MOSUL, IRAQ

06.08.2006

Courtesy Story

138th Public Affairs Detachment

MOSUL, Iraq (June 4, 2006) -- Iraqi Police conducted a ribbon cutting ceremony to re-open their northeast police station in Mosul. The station had been closed since 2003 because anti-Iraqi forces attacked and destroyed the station.

The original station was so badly destroyed that the local IPs had to move operations down the street to an outpost, while the original station was being rebuilt.

"Back in 2003, the Iraqi Police were trying to develop. The AIF went through and ruined the police station, and scared the IPs into quitting," said 1st Lt. Michael McCasland, battalion assistant effects coordinator, Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 2nd Battalion, 1st Infantry Regiment, 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team.

"We opened a station down the street called NE2 Combat Outpost back in December 7, 2005 and initiated a projected to build a new station were the old one was."

According to McCasland, they contracted the work to a local Iraqi construction company that was responsible for excavating the site and rebuilding the new station.

"The opening ceremony marked a re-opening of a police station that was once destroyed and now fully manned with (Iraqi) police officers who came back to work," said McCasland. "There are several problems in that area and a lot of AIF activity that goes on, so I think it's good for residents living in this neighborhood that these officers came back. It shows the insurgents that they may have degraded the IP capabilities for a period of time, but they can not actually destroy what the Iraqis want to have and build."

McCasland said, the Iraqi police were under so much control from Saddam (Hussein) and they are going through a lot of trial and error right now, but they are working through their problems and they have come along way.

Rebuilding a police force is not an easy step for coalition forces and it will not happen immediately. It will take time to train and teach these officers to be the first line defense against an insurgency that would like to see them fail.

"They eventually have to be responsible for their own country and city," said McCasland. "They made a lot of great strides, considering last year there were no Iraqi police, because AIF had scared them into quitting.

The key now is for them to create a better relationship with the Iraqi Army, and they have used a tremendous amount of effort to make that relationship better."