Finns train Iraqi police in Jordan; academy turns out 1,500 officers every month
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In Muwaqqar, in the eastern desert of Jordan, lies a camp that contains the world’s largest police academy. Men are given intensive training there for what is probably one of the most dangerous jobs in the world - that of a police officer in Iraq, where many of them have been killed in car bombings, suicide bombings, and ambushes.
Chief Inspector Mika Raatikainen, leads the group of Finnish police officers providing the training.
After a short course, the new Iraqi police put on their uniforms, "and then they are targets", Raatikainen notes. He adds that the only advice that he can give the new police officers when they leave the academy, is to try and stay alive.
In Iraq police officers are being killed on a daily basis. The largest attacks have caused the deaths of dozens of police. Such news always increases nervousness at the school in Muwaqqar.
The school turns out 1,500 police officers every month. Each graduate has undergone training for two months. Personnel at the school number about 1,900.
Raatikainen lives in Amman and on weekdays, he dives to the camp, which takes him about an hour. The police academy is like a small town, or a large village.
The US Government has spent about 100 million dollars (close to EUR 80 million) in setting up the school, and is spending almost another 100 million a year in running costs.
The trainers come from 16 countries, all of which contribute to the costs. The Finnish trainers are paid by the Finnish Ministry of the Interior. The recruits, aged 18 through 35, are chosen by the Iraqi Interior Ministry, which makes sure that they can read and write.
There are three women among the ten Finnish trainers. Raatikainen has acted as a teacher, as well as a counsellor of sorts, as chief of staff, and now also as an assistant to the director of the camp.
He has seen that not all students can take separation from their families. "If homesickness hits, we let them go", he said.
The school has an average drop-out rate of about three percent. Gary Bullard, the American director of the school, sees this as a good achievement, noting that the rate was between 15 and 18 percent at his police academy in the United States.
Bullard, whose name tag reads "United States Embassy, Amman", notes that the school cannot recognise possible opponents of the Iraqi government (and that of the United States) among the recruits.
"We cannot know about infiltration. I suspect that we have some of them here, but their progress does not indicate anything like that."
It is difficult to follow up on the students’ lives after they leave for home. "We do not hear much about how they are doing. We do not know if they are doing their jobs as we would like them to, although we do get plenty of other feedback from Iraq."
Changes have been made in the curriculum based on some of the feedback. According to Raatikainen, Finnish police have undergone such extensive training themselves, that anyone who has been through it is capable of teaching any sector in the training.
The range of skills of the police from other countries is more narrow. The goal of the camp is to get "100,000 police officers onto the streets".
So far, about 32,000 Iraqi police have been trained at the academy. Under current plans, the Muwaqqar police training project will conclude at the end of this year.
However, construction is continuing at the camp, and Bullard expects that it will continue next year in the form of some kind of regional Mideast training in the name of fighting terrorism for instance.
Fighting terrorism is the motivation of many of the students, alongside serving their country - at least when asked. Once on the job, the police are well paid by Iraqi standards.
One factor possibly influencing the students’ reactions is that during interviews, an Iraqi major was standing by, copying down every Arabic language sentence word by word.
A quasi military order prevails at the camp in other respects as well.
Students may not leave the camp for weekends in Amman, for instance. They are allowed out of the camp only on organised day trips, to visit the Dead Sea, for instance.
Helsingin Sanomat
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| 26.4.2006 - TODAY |
 Finns train Iraqi police in Jordan; academy turns out 1,500 officers every month
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