Word: iraqi
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...return to their old neighborhoods, which remain dominated by the Shi'a. Attacks are much fewer than last year but still average one a day, Vermeesch says. Now, under the security agreement, U.S. forces can no longer carry out a raid, search, cordon or even a patrol without their Iraqi counterparts. In the past two weeks, four minor operations in Vermeesch's district had to be canceled simply because the Iraqi forces weren't ready...
...primary purpose hasn't changed - to secure the population - and will remain that way through the first of January into next year," the brigade's deputy commander, Lieut. Colonel Christopher Beckert, explained a few days before New Year's Eve. "We see the primary threat right now to the Iraqi population as al-Qaeda and also special group criminals. Our plan is to continue to defeat them with our Iraqi counterparts...
...moved from base to base in the final days of December, Vermeesch urged Iraqi commanders to pay more attention to noncombat tasks like equipment maintenance - another fresh responsibility as January gets under way. And even in "combined" patrols, like one Tuesday to search houses for a U.S. soldier's lost weapon, the relationship remains unbalanced at best: a handful of Iraqi police acted as little more than chaperones for a U.S.-led search...
...making arrests, there are other challenges. Previously, U.S. troops could detain Iraqi nationals at will, and for unspecified lengths of time without due process if they were suspected to have participated in insurgent activity. Now the troops must first obtain an Iraqi warrant - something that often requires the presentation of a witness to a judge. Even once a suspect is detained, U.S. forces are legally obligated to hand him to Iraqi forces within 24 hours...
Brigadier General Kadre Abdel Latif, the director of the Interior Ministry's criminal investigations branch in northwest Baghdad, views this as a frustrating new burden - and one the Iraqis aren't ready for. "The army and police - especially the army - impedes our efforts in arresting these [wanted] people," he told Vermeesch during a visit this week. Once information about a target is distributed to Iraqi forces, "the information gets to the wanted people, and they take off." Latif doesn't like the idea of detainees being handed over to Iraqi forces either: they are often released before they...