Low on the Iraqi MoI Totem Pole: Department of Border Enforcement

Montrose Toast ^ | 26 July 2009 | DJ Elliott

[DJ Elliott]

Most of the Iraqi Ministry of Interior (MoI) is focused on internal security. Most MoI components have a secondary role against external forces. Only one Ministry of Interior Service is completely focused on external security: The Department of Border Enforcement.

This difference in MoI service roles tends to give the Department of Border Enforcement (DBE) a lower priority in the MoI. MoI tends to be focused on the counter-insurgency fight. There is at least one case of a DBE battalion being transferred to the Iraqi National Police. Also, two of the DBE’s schools were used to train Iraqi National Police for 18 months, despite the DBE having its own significant backlog of recruits waiting to attend school. Despite this lower priority, the DBE has steadily grown.

[donmeaker]

This is in agreement with the Bush Administration ‘flypaper strategy’ which sucked in radicals from all over the world to force them to fight an ‘away game’ in Iraq where they can be identified by our Iraqi allies with knowledge of the local culture and destroyed with US firepower.

This strategy took pressure off our allies in Germany, Denmark, Morocco, Spain, France, United Kingdom, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Kuwaitt, Algeria, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Indonesia and the Phillipines, and could move off the fence such countries as Lebanon, Yemen, and Syria.