Photo By Staff Sgt. Sj Duga | IP SAWT Teams Learn to Clear Rooms at a remote reange in Irbil Iraq under the...... read more read more
IRBIL, Iraq (June 9, 2006) -- Iraqi Special Weapons and Tactics police officers in Irbil, Iraq, received valuable training from an element of the provincial training team,549th Military Police Company at a remote training range located in the Irbil region.
Pfc. Stan Stansbury of the 549th Military Police Company, a native of Homer, La., is an Iraqi police trainer from the 549th that assist in range operations, the shoot-house, and room clearing tactics.
"All the students are actually current Iraqi Police officers, so when they are done with this block of training they will take the skills they learned back to their stations and go right back to work," said Stansbury.
According to Stansbury, the training that the IP's receive is additional training to help bring them up to the operational level required for Iraq's emerging environments.
"Some of the IP's where police officers before the war started, so it doesn't take them as long to learn the new skills that we are teaching them," said Stansbury.
Pfc. Aaron Postma, also from the 549th, and a native of Gunnison, Mich., said that the training is coming along steadily.
"I don't expect overnight success, considering that most of the IP's where hired, given a weapon, and told to go direct traffic in their district without any training what so ever," said Postma.
Unlike Baghdad, where the IP's are under constant attack, The IP's in the Kurdistan region have more of an opportunity to train their officers due to the reduced threat level in the region.
"I believe that the IP's we are training will be one to two years ahead of the rest of the country in training because of the minimal threat level up here in Irbil, which allows them to train more," said Postma.
Even though the IP's are learning new skills, it is challenging trying to work with individuals under the stresses of language barriers and with the oppression of living under the rule of Saddam Hussein for decades.
"Sometimes it's like trying to teach an old dog new tricks, because they have been at war for so many years before we even showed up," said Postma. "We can only hope to teach them a better and safer way of conducting their policing tasks, and I believe we are succeeding in that goal."
| Date Taken: | 06.12.2006 |
| Date Posted: | 06.12.2006 13:13 |
| Story ID: | 6788 |
| Location: | IRBIL, IQ |
| Web Views: | 89 |
| Downloads: | 21 |
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