hey president bush!!! i thought we were bringing democracy to iraq????? what happened???? and i bet we dont even get to steal their oil like you orginally planned??? Original Article Iraqi security forces scrutinized Control by Shiites hampers efforts for police reform Edward Wong New York Times Mar. 7, 2006 12:00 AM BAGHDAD - As the threat of full-scale sectarian strife looms, the U.S. military is scrambling to try to weed out ethnic or religious partisans from the Iraqi security forces. The United States faces the possibility that it has been arming one side in a prospective civil war. Early on, Americans ceded operational control of the police to the Iraqi government. Now, the police forces are controlled at the highest levels by religious Shiite parties with militias, and reports of uniformed death squads have risen sharply in the past year. The U.S. military is trying an array of possible solutions. Those include quotas to boost the number of Sunni Arab recruits in police academies, firing Shiite police commanders who appear to tolerate militias, and sending 200 training teams composed of military police officers or former civilian police officers to Iraqi stations, even in remote and risky locations. There is no quick or painless fix. The efforts risk alienating Shiite politicians, who have fiercely resisted attempts to wrest away their control of the security forces. The moves may appeal, though, to recalcitrant Sunni Arabs, whom the Americans want to draw into the political process. Trying to reform the police forces could take years because sectarian loyalties have become entrenched and police officers are rooted in their communities, senior military officials acknowledge. Critics say American efforts to train the Iraqi police also continue to be hampered by a shortage of troops and civilian advisers. Several of the initiatives, such as encouraging more Sunni students in police academies, have been going on for months but were being conducted on a larger scale. Others, such as the deployment of the new police-training teams, are just beginning. But the wave of sectarian violence that followed the bombing of a Shiite shrine on Feb. 22 has heightened the urgency of the measures. After the bombing, mobs led by Shiite militiamen attacked dozens of Sunni mosques and left hundreds dead. But many police units stood aside, either out of confusion or sectarian loyalties, according to Iraqi witnesses. Gen. George Casey, top American commander in Iraq, said last Friday that police officers had allowed militiamen through checkpoints in east Baghdad, where much of the violence occurred. The Iraqi army poses less of a problem than the police because the U.S. military has direct operational control over it and because the Americans took more care in building it up.