IRAQ: The United States is seeking to train up to 28,000 Iraqi police officers at a military base in Hungary as American authorities struggle to bring law and order to Iraq, officials said yesterday.
The officials said the US was holding talks with NATO ally Hungary about using Taszar Air Base to train thousands of Iraqis in police skills in the next several months, but no final agreement had been reached.
A spokeswoman for the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad said US officials have set the goal of training and deploying 65,000 Iraqi police officers around the country.
She said roughly 37,000 Iraqi police officers already were on the job, meaning "about 28,000" more could be trained at the Taszar base if Hungary agrees to the arrangement. She said US officials envisioned a series of eight-week training sessions, each involving about 3,000 police recruits.
"It's simply that we just don't have the capacity within Iraq to train that many people," she said by telephone from Baghdad.
"We've got three \ training centres at the moment, in Mosul, Baghdad and Basra. They just do not have the capacity to train that many people," the spokeswoman added. "We have to look at a way of getting more police officers trained."
The Pentagon is attempting to turn over many duties for policing Iraq to Iraqis. Along with attacks against US troops and Iraqi infrastructure targets, as well as the truck bombings this month of the UN headquarters and the Jordanian embassy in Baghdad, ordinary crime has also been a problem in the Iraqi capital and elsewhere.
In addition to the 37,000 police officers, another 17,000 Iraqis have been hired to provide security at infrastructure sites such as power and water plants, US officials said.
"I think it's clear that we've got to do a lot more to bring an Iraqi face to security establishments throughout Iraq very quickly," US Central Command chief Gen John Abizaid said last Thursday.
Mr Bernard Kerik, a former New York City police commissioner, is responsible for US efforts to train Iraqi police.
"The sooner that Iraq is run by Iraqis, the better for everybody," the Coalition Provisional Authority spokeswoman said. "That is why we're trying to set up the Iraqi police. Plus the fact that we want Iraq to be a free, democratic and humane society."
She said the training involves classroom instruction, and training in weapons use and interrogation without the use of torture.
The Pentagon used the Taszar base in south-central Hungary prior to the Iraq war to train a few dozen Iraqis living in the United States and Europe to serve as civil affairs specialists during the conflict. Hungary gave the US permission to train up to 3,000 Iraqis in the prewar effort.
Hungarian Foreign Ministry spokesman Mr Tamas Toth said that, "Hungary has not received any official request in this matter so far."
Mr Toth added that, "Hungary is ready to examine potential ways of co-operation, including how to put the Taszar base into use."