CRS

CRS:

The Congressional Research Service has a new report out on the role of security forces in peacekeeping operations, including Iraq. It can be found here (.pdf warning). If the topic interests you, you'll find this to be a brief (58 pages is brief for the government) history lesson, coupled with lessons learned.

One of the most interesting sections is the "problem areas," which identifies gaps that show up regularly in operations of this type:

The second problem area is the presence of three security gaps in the ability of the international community to establish law and order in peacekeeping and other
post-conflict situations. (Deficiencies in recruitment and training systems can contribute to the first two of these gaps.) These gaps can be particularly troublesome in situations where not all parties to the conflict are dedicated to peace or where criminal networks have taken root, and where local authority has been removed or
replaced by an international intervention.

*The first of these security gaps is the deployment gap, or the failure or inability to deploy police forces as quickly as needed, or in adequate numbers to perform the mission assigned to them. This was noted in the U.S. unilateral intervention in Panama in 1989, and subsequently in some of the earliest international missions of the 1990s, for example in Cambodia. There, the UNCIVPOL mission could not perform some of its mandated tasks because it took several months to deploy CivPol components and some 10 months for the mission to reach its authorized size. In Somalia, it took nearly a full year to deploy the first dozen UNCIVPOL. In other cases, such as Bosnia in the mid-1990s, the United Nations was able to recruit only about half of the number authorized for the mission. Although deployment time apparently has been somewhat reduced as missions have become more complex, it still is not considered optimal. In addition, a gap remains in the U.N.'s ability to deploy a sufficient number of people with specialized skills.

* The second is the enforcement gap, or the inability of deployed police forces to assure the level of security needed to provide the necessary climate to conduct normal policing operations. In these cases, the police deployed often lack the necessary skills to handle the situation, in particular the military skills needed to carry out constabulary functions in hostile situations, and investigative and intelligence-gathering skills to deal with organized crime. When military forces have not been available to assist police in handling hostile situations, either because they were in short supply (as occurred in Somalia in 1993-1995) or because their mandate did not include law enforcement functions (as in Bosnia in 1996), peacekeeping operations have been compromised.

* The third is the institution gap, where the indigenous law enforcement system lacks adequate numbers of honest and efficient judicial and penal personnel, as well as sound judicial and penal institutions, and thus are unable to effectively follow-up to police work with prosecution and punishment necessary for sustainable security. In many post-conflict situations, understaffed (if not partially intimidated or corrupted) judiciaries and penal systems, lacking even basic resources, have not been able to handle effectively the increased workload that results from more efficient policing.

We have, of course, seen all of these kinds of problems again in Iraq, though one or two of the specific examples has been avoided. Unfortunately, as often is the case with government--and especially Congressional--bureaucracies, the paper is much better at identifying problems than positing workable solutions. Indeed, predictably, the suggested reforms generally involve the creation of large, new bureaucracies.

The State Department comes in for some criticism in having attempted a market-based solution:

In what was intended as a major innovation in the U.S. CivPol system... the Department of State has issued contracts (as mentioned above) for the establishment and maintenance of a reserve cadre of up to 2,000 U.S. law enforcement personnel, who would be available for international police service on short notice....

As envisioned by the bidding proposal, the new cadre of U.S. civilian police would "eliminate the requirement to conduct from scratch, recruitment, selection, and training activities each time the U.S. contributes police to an international CivPol operation." The RFP also called for the contractor to identify technical advisors, who are not police officers, who could be called upon to assist with establishing institutional capabilities in police, judicial, and corrections systems.

The State Department's decision to award contracts for the new CivPol cadre program to multiple companies, rather than one as originally envisioned, has raised some questions about whether the process will be as expeditious as originally planned. While there may be some advantages to be gained by continued competition for CivPol deployments, and the greater number of applicants from which to choose, which some may judge necessary because of the Iraq and Afghanistan missions, some analysts fear that these advantages will be offset by additional costs and delays.

It sounds to me like State's on to something, for a change.