Iraqi Police Patrol the North

T U Z  K H A R M A T U, Iraq, Nov. 4, 2004 -- The road from Baghdad to Tuz Kharmatu is marked every few hundred yards by the twisted metal of fallen towers that once carried electricity lines — reminders of the lawlessness that followed the war.

Looters pulled the towers down one by one to steal the copper wire, which was, at the time, a fast mover on the black market. Some used trucks to pull the towers down; others used explosives.

Since then, power transmission has been restored. Traffic along the road is also markedly busier than just a few weeks ago.

Aging trucks carry used cars from Turkey and Syria, petrol from Kirkuk and electrical appliances from Jordan. Orange and white Volkswagen taxis ferry whole families. A man on a motorcycle hauls at least a dozen cardboard boxes.

As we film, a rusty, unmarked sedan pulls up, unloading five Iraqi policemen in mismatched uniforms. The ranking officer, Lt. Cmdr. Rashid Ali Rashid, tells us the road is safe during the day, but that at night, we should be careful.

Before the war, Rashid was a MiG-23 pilot in the Iraqi air force. Now, as American F-15 jets fly overhead — an unusual sight in Baghdad, but common in the north — he explains they're watching the oil and gas pipelines running north-south from Kirkuk to prevent sabotage; attackers have bombed the pipeline several times in recent weeks.

What the American pilots can do to prevent attacks from 15,000 feet, he's not sure. He says they fly mostly to intimidate potential attackers.

Rashid and the other policemen escort us to Tuz's police station. He says the Americans have given them radios but no police cars. The 250 police officers stationed here rely on one pickup truck, squeezing in as many as 10 officers at a time.

The Americans have also supplied some weapons, mostly AK-47s, and, most importantly, the police officers' monthly paychecks. Each officer gets $120 a month; senior officers, including Rashid, receive $180 a month. They say they're still waiting for their September paychecks.

‘Life Is Getting Better’

"Stability is improving every day," says Rashid. "In some places, like Baghdad, they have attacked police officers and bombed police stations, but we haven't seen that here."

The police say the crime rate is about the same today as it was just before the war. More than 20 prisoners sit inside the police station's one communal cell. Most of them are accused of murder. One officer shows us the station's crime log where each offense written down in longhand: 17 murders, three robberies and several assaults.

"Right after the war, there were lots of problems with the former Baathists — people murdering them for revenge," says Police Chief Abas Muhammad Ameen. "The murder rate was much higher, but it is improving day by day. For the people, life is getting better. The electricity is better. All things are getting better."

The prisoners are eager to speak to us. Most profess their innocence. Some say the legal system has not changed at all since the war: The judges are the same, and defense lawyers are only available to those who can afford them. But one prisoner, who was arrested by U.S. troops for allegedly looting, says the system is much better now.

"Before the war, when the Baathists had power, we could not speak," says the prisoner. "Before the war, you needed to pay bribes. If you were poor and could not pay the Baathists, you would stay in jail. Now there are no bribes. There is no nepotism. It's fair now."

The U.S. military no longer runs patrols in Tuz. Iraqi police have taken over — a job they carry out mostly on foot, though occasionally they roll out their lone police truck.

Ethnic Disputes Remain

Like many northern towns, Tuz is a patchwork of ethnicities: Arabs, Turkomen and Kurds. Inside the market, two Turkomen residents corner us and complain that the Americans favor the Kurds.

One says his son was killed by the Americans in a shootout at a local mosque. Earlier in the summer, the town's main mosque was destroyed in an explosion. Arabs and Turkomen blame the Kurds. The Kurds blame other Muslim factions.

"The Americans have manipulated the different ethnic and religious groups against one another," says one Turkomen resident. "I can tell you we have been living with Kurds and Arabs a long time and never have we had such tension between groups as we have since the Americans came. It has continued since they arrived."

Neither group can agree who is in the majority. The official census under Saddam Hussein's regime indicated Kurds made up 52 percent of the population, a figure the Turkomen and Arab residents dispute. Even some Kurds quietly admit they're outnumbered. The American-appointed mayor of Tuz, however, is a Kurd.

Before nightfall, we leave Tuz for Kirkuk. After sunset, we pull into a city brimming with activity. Nearly every store is open. The streets are crowded with cars and pedestrians. And women and children are out after dark, a sight almost unheard of in Baghdad.

The city is unrecognizable from late April, when my producer Drew Millhon and I first arrived here with U.S. special forces as the city fell. There is power. The traffic lights are working. And Iraqi policemen are on patrol. We don't see any U.S. soldiers.