Interview With Jerry Burke (Part 1 & 2)

[JWing]

Here's the latest interview I did. It's with Jerry Burke who was part of assessment team for Iraq's police in 2003, then an advisor to the Baghdad police 2003-2004, and the Interior Ministry 2005-2006. It's a two part interview. Here's the intro to the first half, and a link.

American Negligence In Iraq, Or How The United States Failed To Plan For Securing The Country: Part One Of A Two Part Interview With Jerry Burke, Former Advisor To The Baghdad Police And Interior Ministry

In May 2003, Jerry Burke, who at the time was the head of the New England Institute of Law Enforcement Management, was asked if he would be interested in travelling to Baghdad to carry out an assessment of the Iraqi police. He took up the offer, and found a police force in utter disarray. Most of its officers had abandoned their posts, police stations were looted and burned, and the government was non-existent. The U.S. was wholly unprepared for such a situation. Instead of having a plan in place before the March 2003 invasion, Burke and his team found themselves analyzing the Iraqi police, so that a program could be put together to secure the country, which would take months to implement. The lack of adequate preparation set the stage for what Burke would face during his two tours in Iraq, first as part of a Justice Department Assessment Team in May 2003, then as an advisor to the Baghdad Police from May 2003 to June 2004, and finally as part of an assistance mission to the Iraqi Interior Ministry from March 2005 to February 2006. During those years, he found a U.S. government that lacked the commitment to truly rebuild Iraq, which undermined the transition from a dictatorship to a democracy that Burke and others were working on. In the process, the rule of law was never fully established in Iraq. Burke later went on to work in Palestine and Afghanistan, and is currently serving as an advisor with a foreign police force in the Middle East.

continued

[JWing]

This is the second half of the interview I did with Jerry Burke who was an adviser to the Iraqi police and Interior Ministry. This part is even better than the first. He talks about his second tour which coincided with the Supreme Council taking over the Interior Ministry. It put its Badr Brigade militia into the Special Police/Commando units, that then began running death squads and torture rooms. Everyone always talks about the Mahdi Army and the security forces, but it was really the Supreme Council that got in first and starting killing Sunnis before the Sadrists did. The U.S. leadership knew about this, but did nothing, saying it was an Iraqi problem. He also talks about whether the U.S. is good at nation building. His belief, the civilian agencies in the American government lack the manpower and knowledge to do it, and only the military has the numbers, but not the skills. I also posted a 2006 TV show about the death squads run out of the Iraqi police that includes an interview with Burke. Enjoy

2nd half of interview

video link