11 Iraqi Police Officers, Trainees Killed in Attacks

Eleven police officers and trainees were slain Tuesday in separate attacks in northern and southern Iraq, renewing questions about whether the inexperienced Iraqi civilian security forces will be ready to protect the country in three months when sovereignty is to be handed back to the Iraqis.

Tuesday’s daylight killings were the latest in a string of increasingly brazen attacks on police and the Iraqi civil defense forces. In the last five months, car bombs and gunfire have taken the lives of hundreds of police chiefs, officers and trainees in cities large and small.

Insurgents appear to be targeting the Iraqis because they are regarded as collaborators with U.S.-led forces and are more accessible than foreign troops.

In a meeting Tuesday with dignitaries from Najaf, in south-central Iraq, U.S. civilian administrator L. Paul Bremer III faced numerous questions about security.

The group of 20 Najaf officials, clerics and university professors asked Bremer repeatedly about his security plans. Bremer, while seeking to reassure them, said that increasingly it would be up to Iraqis to handle security.

“We know security is your top priority and it is also ours,” Bremer told the group. “Our strategic objective is to give Iraqis responsibility for security.”

Bremer acknowledged, however, that the quality of the new forces was “variable.” Although some members are “good and dedicated,” he said, others are less prepared.

“America is spending almost $2 billion to train a professional police force. It’s the largest police training program in history. We’ll train 25,000 police,” he added. “It shows how serious we are

Although Iraqis have seemed resigned to the attacks and violence, coalition officials worry that their patience may wear thin and that bloody bouts of retaliation could become the norm.

Tuesday’s deadliest attack occurred on the road between the city of Hillah and the Euphrates River village of Musayib. Nine police officers and trainees were killed when insurgents fired a barrage of bullets into their vehicle.

“Heavy fire was launched against the car,” said one survivor, an officer who did not want his name used because he said he feared reprisal.

The area has become increasingly dangerous, with attacks on Western civilians as well as against Iraqis who are perceived as working for them. In early February, a car bomb at the police station in the nearby town of Iskandariya took about 50 lives.

Meanwhile, in the northern city of Kirkuk, two police officers were killed and three were injured when they were attacked with rocket-propelled grenades and small arms as they traveled to Baghdad. All were from the Muqdad police station, said Torhan Abdul Rahman, head of the Kirkuk police.

Bremer’s meeting with some members of Najaf’s establishment came just as Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, Iraq’s top Shiite Muslim cleric, threatened to shun the United Nations when it returned to Iraq unless the world body rejected the interim Iraqi constitution recently ratified by the U.S.-appointed Governing Council. Sistani, who is based in Najaf and dominates the city’s politics, also wants the U.N. to make it clear that the document could be renegotiated after Iraq elects an interim government, perhaps in January.

Such a move could throw into disarray the U.S.-led coalition’s effort to ensure that certain basic rights and democratic principles are part of Iraq’s permanent governance.

Bremer avoided saying anything directly about Sistani, but he sought to reassure Najafis, many of whom are loyal to Sistani, that the coalition had no plans to interfere in the drafting of a permanent constitution.

When asked by one of Najaf’s dignitaries whether the interim constitution would have a binding effect on the permanent document, Bremer responded: “The permanent constitution will be decided by elected people, not the coalition.... The elected [constitutional convention] can address whatever matters they wish to address.”

In other developments, at Abu Ghraib prison on the outskirts of Baghdad, the U.S. military released 272 detainees who had been picked up in security sweeps, Associated Press reported. The men, many of them bearded and wearing Arab robes or tracksuits, appeared to be in good health.

On Sunday, 168 prisoners were released, said Lt. Col. Craig Essick of the 16th Military Police Brigade. He said 5,500 to 6,000 detainees are at the prison, and the average is held three to six months.

Also in the capital, a rocket struck the Ishtar Hotel between the seventh and eighth floors early today, causing some damage but no injuries, a military spokesman said. The hotel has been targeted several times.

Military officials also announced that a soldier in Mosul had died Monday of a gunshot wound unrelated to combat.

Special correspondents Yalman Zainul Abdin in Kirkuk and Adel Ardawi in Hillah contributed to this report.