Iraqi National Security Adviser Mowaffak al-Rubaie, a Shiite politician who has criticized the British raid as "a violation of Iraqi sovereignty," acknowledged that one problem coalition forces face is that insurgents have joined the ranks of security forces.
"Iraqi security forces in general, police in particular, in many parts of Iraq, I have to admit, have been penetrated by some of the insurgents, some of the terrorists as well," he said in an interview with the BBC on Tuesday night.
Officials in Basra, speaking on condition of anonymity because they feared for their lives, said at least 60 percent of the police force there is made up of Shiite militiamen from one of three groups: the Mahdi Army; the Badr Brigade, the armed wing of the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq; and Hezbollah in Iraq, a small group based in the southern marshlands.
How can we build a stable government on a platform of 60% insurgency in the security forces alone? Is Iran our next Cambodia?
If the reports are correct, I'm glad the Brits had the guts to go in and get their people out of trouble, though I have to wonder what they were up to wearing civilian clothes; probably trying to get information concerning the infiltration of securtiy forces by radical/foreign insurgents. Would that be irony?
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