Bullets were whizzing past American Lt. Michael Drayton’s head as he called for backup while his military police officers battled some 300 angry Iraqi demonstrators wielding swords, knives and guns.
Ordinarily, squads of Marines would have rushed in to help. But Polish and Bulgarian forces replaced the Americans last week as part of an effort to internationalize military control in central Iraq.
Nearly two hours after Drayton’s urgent call Thursday, after the Americans shot three Iraqis during the melee, an apologetic contingent of Poles and Bulgarians arrived to help quell the disturbance. They blamed a cumbersome communications process and bureaucratic hassles for the delay.
“I don’t know if they are working on the same sheet of music,” Drayton said of the foreign troops a day after the Karbala incident. “It would have been a different story with the Marines.”
As the Bush administration pushes aggressively for additional international forces to help U.S. soldiers keep the peace in Iraq, the coordination problems outside the police station here suggest that a larger multinational force is hardly going to be a panacea.
Language barriers, differing rules of engagement, outdated equipment and poor training all point out the unevenness among the contingent of 22,000 soldiers from 30 nations that already are aiding the U.S. and Britain in the Iraqi occupation.
Residents in central Iraq find themselves navigating among an array of foreign troops as they go about their daily lives.
In Nasiriyah, stern-faced Italian soldiers with feathers in their helmets work checkpoints using gestures, as most speak no Arabic.
In Najaf, forces from Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic, Honduras and El Salvador confound the Shiite faithful with chattering in Spanish.
In Kut, Ukrainian troops ride around in rickety Soviet-era military vehicles that often break down and elicit laughs from Iraqis.
Although Drayton was happy to have the Poles and Bulgarians assisting his more than 60 military police in Karbala, he nevertheless had to persuade the Poles not to use tear gas on the crowd–it is against coalition rules–and the Bulgarians not to fire randomly on the Iraqis.
“Imagine we have this hostile situation and you have to find an interpreter that speaks Polish, Bulgarian, Iraqi and English,” Drayton said. “We still have a lot of growing to do when it comes to using our foreign help.”
From the highest American military commanders in Iraq to the U.S. foot soldiers on patrol, there is worry about the preparedness of their foreign counterparts for the ongoing guerrilla war that produces an average of a dozen attacks per day on coalition forces.
“I think there will be an element that will continue to attack,” Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, said last week as he spoke of the prospect of more foreign help.
Less well-defended bases
Far less fortified than American bases, the Polish and Bulgarian headquarters in Karbala appear to be easy marks for the kind of terrorist bombings that have hit soft targets four times in the past month.
“That is my headache,” said Polish Brig. Gen. Marek Ojrzanowski, head of about 1,300 foreign soldiers who took over major patrols in central Iraq south of Baghdad last week. “We have been warned by the Americans that we will be tested by the so-called bad guys.
“We don’t have the certain defense instincts like the Americans,” he said. “We have to be more resilient.”
So far there have been a few scattered misses of mortar and gunfire against the Poles. But the Polish troops clearly are skittish.
Two weeks ago, six Polish soldiers were patrolling with Polish journalists in tow when they came under gunfire from nearby roofs. They quickly retreated without attempting to investigate.
“Everybody is afraid,” said Polish army spokesman Wojtak Majeran, who served with the Polish contingent of United Nations forces in Lebanon last year. “This is different from what Polish soldiers are used to.”
Before the U.S. Marines left Karbala, they advised the international contingent and joined them on patrols.
“The Marines are professional people,” said Polish Cpl. Darisz Tylka, who commands the guard forces at the Polish headquarters here in a dilapidated former tourist hotel. “They learn to fight the right way. . . . We don’t have a lot of experience like the Marines.”
Foreign troops, moreover, don’t share the same radio frequencies with the Americans. That nearly led to an international incident about two weeks ago when Tylka spotted plainclothes gunmen climbing to the roof of a nearby restaurant.
Tylka did not know that they were American forces guarding the building while U.S. soldiers had a meal downstairs.
A second from firing
“In one second, I would have opened fire,” said Tylka, who resisted because his commander hesitated giving the order. “I would have killed a Marine.”
The U.S. military remains firmly in charge of overall operations in Iraq and intends to retain that control even if the international military presence in Iraq is expanded.
But with the Marines gone, Poles have taken over ground command in this region and work under the watch of a few American military advisers. The Bulgarians patrol the outskirts of Karbala under Polish orders.
Iraqi police are responsible for law and order in the city center. A contingent of U.S. military police from northern California is headquartered in the police station and goes out on troubleshooting patrols and advises the Iraqi police.
Save for the sharing of information between top commanders, however, there is little coordination between the Americans or the Iraqi police and foreign troops, several military police officers said.
“We really don’t know what the Poles and Bulgarians are doing,” said Spec. Emory Landon, who has worked as a police officer in Morgan Hill, Calif. “In a sense, they are freelancing. We just try to stay out of each other’s way.”
Still, when help is needed, the foreign troops are now the main source south of Baghdad in central Iraq.
On Thursday afternoon, a crowd of angry Iraqis descended on the Karbala police station. They waved swords and brandished assault rifles while demanding an apology from American police, who the day before had confiscated some weapons from men who claimed to be protecting a local cleric.
“There was no apology given,” said Drayton, who commanded the operation. “We do not return weapons.”
As the crowd grew more agitated, Iraqi police largely abandoned the scene, Drayton said, leaving him to demand that they fetch the police chief. Police officers told Drayton that the chief was not home, he said.
Iraqis and Americans differ over what happened next.
“It was a peaceful demonstration until one American soldier pushed an Iraqi,” said Riyadh Ali, an Iraqi police major. “Then the soldier shot and killed him.”
But American military police say they responded with gunfire after an Iraqi attempted to hit one of the military police officers with a sword. Then one Iraqi fired shots at Drayton, and his men responded with gunfire, Drayton said.
Three Iraqis died in the ensuing battle, the Americans said.
With Iraqi police refusing to help, Drayton said he called through a window in the police station for one of his men to radio American commanders for assistance. They in turn contacted the Poles, who mobilized quickly, only to find that the Bulgarians needed to clear their movements with their commanders.
“I can order them . . . but they have their regulations,” said Ojrzanowski, the Polish general, who is the lead coalition ground commander.
The Poles and Bulgarians finally arrived, nearly two hours later, military police officers said.
