August 28,2008:
U.S. troops are learning more how
to operate like police. That's because the Iraqi justice system is up and
running, and Iraqis U.S. troops arrest can be quickly released if there is
insufficient evidence to hold them. In anticipation of this, the LEPs (Law
Enforcement Professionals) program was established, which put over a hundred
experienced detectives into Iraq and Afghanistan. Their main job was to show
the troops how to collect sufficient evidence to make sure the suspects they
grab are held by the judicial system long enough to determine guilt or
innocence.
The U.S.
Army is trying to get these new techniques to become part of the official
doctrine (the detailed protocols of how things are done). That all began after
2003, when the army got a lot of unofficial help from reservists who were cops
and detectives in their regular jobs. Many army officers see this kind of
"police work" as something the army will encounter again, and want it
incorporated into official doctrine, so that it becomes a part of the
"official memory." While this knowledge is retained by the reservists
(informally), the details of how this police type investigating and analysis is
done by army units is important. Without making all this stuff part of
doctrine, those critical details will largely be lost.
In Iraq,
military intelligence specialists have been eagerly investigating how police in
the United States investigate, and identify criminal gangs back home. That's
because the enemy in Iraq typically belongs to a criminal, or terrorist group,
that operates like a gang. There are cultural differences, and dealing with
these quirks causes the most problems. On the positive side, there is a large
industry in the United States that supplies special software to police
departments, for handling investigations. This stuff is basically database
software with formats and analysis abilities tweaked to assist police
investigations. These programs have been revolutionizing detective work over
the last two decades. It took a few months, after the invasion, for the intel people in Iraq to become aware
of this software, and they were helped greatly by reservists who were police
commanders or detectives in their civilian jobs.
It was
discovered that the "gangs of Iraq" operated in a similar fashion to ethnic
gangs (including Arab ones) in the United States and Europe. Thus genealogical
software came in handy, as did new cell phone tracking and bugging software and
equipment. Regular (land-line) phones are unreliable in Iraq, and the new cell
phones services are more popular. Even when they discovered how easy it was to
track cell phones, many Iraqi gangsters and anti-government fighters refused to
give them up. The genealogy software is useful in tracking the relations
between family members in gangs. Many gangs are basically family based, with
many distant cousins coming together because of family loyalty.
Terrorist
attacks are treated like serial criminals. This type of criminal behavior is
most widely known when it is murder. But there are many kinds of serial crime,
and U.S. intel specialists found that attacks on Iraqi police and U.S. troops
was, in most cases, just another serial crime. The perpetrators would often
follow a pattern, one that the software could pick out. One thing leads to
another, and arrests often result. DNA analysis and all the tools you see on
CSI, are brought to bear. It's no accident that the 4th Infantry Division
captured Saddam Hussein. The 4th Infantry is the most high tech outfit in the
army, with more geeks per battalion than any other combat organization.
Financial
auditing and tracking assets also proved useful. Much of the violence in Iraq
is financed by billions of dollars Saddam and his cronies stole. Over a billion
dollars of that money, in U.S. currency, was discovered right after Saddam
fell. There is a parallel effort to create Arabic interfaces for a lot of this
software, so the Iraqi police can use it as well.
The LEPs
also work with local Iraqi and Afghan police, passing on practical U.S. police
techniques that will work in these new environments.