Posted on 02/01/2005 12:13:21 PM PST by SwinneySwitch
McALLEN — An undisclosed number of U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers have voluntarily been in Iraq since at least August teaching members of the Iraqi Department of Border Enforcement how to secure the frontierlands, a U.S. Customs and Border Protection official said Monday.
Just as American soldiers have been given the task of readying an Iraqi militia to keep the peace in what some would refer to as a day-old democracy, CBP officers have also been busy schooling Iraqi border police on how to keep terrorists and arms out of the country.
At least 1,600 Iraqis have been trained at the Jordan International Training Academy in Amman, Jordan, said Mike Villarreal, U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesman. Another class will commence early this month. They are learning "border security, defensive tactics, vehicle searches, as well as basic customs and immigration activities," he said.
In a draft of a press release that has yet to be circulated, CBP Commissioner Robert C. Bonner said, "U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers and Border Patrol agents are fighting the war on terror, and we’ve taken it to the border of Iraq. Our people are on a vital mission to train Iraqis to protect their own borders and build Iraqi institutions that will safeguard the new freedoms and democratic principles being established there. "There is no more important mission."
However, National Border Patrol Council President T.J. Bonner, who only recently learned of the deployment, said he feels that officers of a homeland security agency belong at home.
The National Border Patrol Council is the labor organization that represents the 10,000 or so non-supervisory U.S. Border Patrol employees.
"Homeland security begins at home," he said. "That (training Iraqis to secure their borders) falls into the category of nice but not necessary."
The union official remarked that agents have done a "pathetic job" at home and have no place educating others.
In other statements, T.J. Bonner has blamed poor leadership and low morale because of it, combined with a lack of funds to be causes for the "porous" border. Recent announcements that Border Patrol would be getting closer to 200 agents instead of the 2,000 slated for fiscal year 2006 in the Intelligence Reform Bill passed in December in response to the Sept. 11 Commission’s report don’t make him more hopeful that change is in the near future.
"We’re getting one-tenth of the reinforcements we needed," he said.
Rich Pierce, executive vice president of the same union said he did not know how many agents had been pulled from the borders to train the Iraqis, but he said that "taking people off our border, no matter how minimal, affects the people who still work on the border."
Villarreal contended, though, that the numbers of CBP officers in Iraq is "a very small portion of highly trained individuals." He also said CBP officers are doing the jobs they were intended to do.
"CBP has been in many locations throughout the world for many, many years," Villarreal said.
T.J. Bonner said these individuals training Iraqi border police belong to the U.S. Border Patrol Tactical Unit (BORTAC), which operates extensively overseas. BORTAC headquarters is located at Biggs Army Airfield in El Paso. An agent within the unit declined to comment Monday about the deployment.
According to Customs and Border Protection Today, a newsletter for the agency, "BORTAC is summoned for high-risk and difficult missions — they quell riots, restore order in natural disasters, track terrorists and intercept human smugglers and drug traffickers."
Perhaps the most well-known instance in which BORTAC officers were called upon is the removal of Elian Gonzalez from his Cuban-American relatives in Miami and subsequent return to his father in Cuba. In 2000, the 6-year-old boy was found floating in an inner tube after the boat carrying him, a group of Cubans and his mother toward an illegal but tempting life in the United States capsized.
But "BORTAC missions run the gamut from training and advisory work to military type enforcement operations," the newsletter reads. "Law enforcement organizations in Russia, Africa, Eastern Europe, South America and the Middle East have all received training from BORTAC."
Despite a seemingly successful election, the CBP officers in Iraq have no pre-determined end date, Villarreal said. They will stay until they are no longer needed.
And as for whether a portion of the U.S. Border Patrol’s budget is being used to train the Iraqi Department of Border Enforcement, not T.J. Bonner nor Villarreal had an answer. Calls to both the majority and minority offices of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs went unanswered.
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Cari Hammerstrom covers law enforcement and general assignments for The Monitor. You can reach her at (956) 683-4424.
while illegals roam about America unabated...
go figure?
Yeepee, let us start the Bash Bush Orgy.
Yes, instead, let's give him a free pass when he fails to do something....you know, since he has an (R) by his name, he's beyond criticism!
Now all they need to do is teach the Iraqi Leaders to have the political will to enforce the Border Regulations. Once they've figured out how to do that they should come back to the US and give some of our leaders the same lessons.
Some things leave me speechless.
Why, does he deserve to be bashed on this score - Do ANY of our leaders deserve to be bashed on this score? If not, then I guess the Immigration situation is OK right? If they do deserve it, why?
Teaching the Iraqis to SECURE their borders?
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!
WOW if they teach them to do as good a job as they do on our borders---the Iraqis will have Syrians doing all the low paying jobs they don't want to do!!!
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It is a convoluted mess, isn't it? Illegals, and God knows what else are pouring across our borders in obscene numbers, yet our skimpy border patrol is over there??? A bit of a paradox. I hope the ground-swell is building in this country to the point that Washington starts defending OUR borders...
It shows ya how phony these pols are. GW either changes his stripes on this issue or The Hildabeast steals the issue & wins the election. It's as simple as that.
We have the best border patrol agents in the world. The problem is with out politicians who won't let them enforce the law.
This catch and release is the most flawed policy our country has and if the Republicans won't pick up the issue and run with it...they will just hand the 2008 presidency to Hillary Clinton!!!
This poll refers to an ID # given by the IRS for Federal tax purposes only. At least 5 states are accepting this ID card to give social services, registering to vote, even sell property to Illegal Aliens. Financing institutions love it and make excuses that this should be legal.
Do you believe state governments should allow illegal aliens to use a federal identification number to obtain rights intended for U.S. citizens?
Yes 6% 156 votes
No 94% 2650 votes
Total: 2806 votes
http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/lou.dobbs.tonight/
Show will repeat.
UPDATED: FBI warns drug cartel has plot to kidnap federal agents
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1332451/posts
yeah, but we need more open borders....
And in a related story, we're also helping the Iraqis safeguard against voter fraud.
On the bright side, perhaps she'll force the GOP take it up.
Lets hope so...and lets hope that the Republicans don't start talking about another amnesty.
I know they say it's a work program, but after the illegal's work permit expires...what makes President Bush think they'll go home. Won't the illegals just go back to being illegal aliens again???
My tagline...
It shows ya how phony these pols are. GW either changes his stripes on this issue or The Hildabeast steals the issue & wins the election. It's as simple as that.
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You may be right. At the same time, this whole "silence" on the part of the administration may be a deeply calculated plan, to not slam into the situation, but to do some maneuvering which will take some time, but accomplish the control we need...anybody's guess at this point, but I still cannot believe that GWB (et al) are neutral on this issue....
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