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View Full Version : Iraq Plans to Confront Security Firms on Guns



Jedburgh
11-08-2007, 02:43 PM
NYT, 7 Nov 07: Iraq Plans to Confront Security Firms on Guns (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/08/world/middleeast/08ministry.html?_r=1&ref=middleeast&oref=slogin)

The Iraqi interior minister said Wednesday that he would authorize raids by his security forces on Western security firms to ensure that they were complying with tightened licensing requirements on guns and other weaponry, setting up the possibility of violent confrontations between the Iraqis and heavily armed Western guards.....
...also tucked further down in the article:

.....by emphasizing the new steps it is taking to control weapons, the Interior Ministry seems determined to leverage the respect shown for its investigators in such a high-profile case into an improved image over all. The strategy appears to be to concede that both American and Iraqi security forces have made mistakes in the past but that both were taking steps to put those problems behind them.

During one remarkable session on Wednesday, an administrative official at the ministry said that it had had problems with “ghost payrollers,” or fictitious employees, and political pressure in the past. But the official, Maj. Gen. Jihan Hussein, said that the ministry was squarely facing those problems.

“If you knew the pressures we have from members of Parliament to have their relatives employed by the ministry, you wouldn’t believe it,” General Hussein said.....
These other issues are far more important in the big picture than the attention-grabber at the head of the article of the potential for Iraqi security forces to clash with PMCs.