Iraqi Women Praise American Women and Become Police Officers

Photo Credits: LA Times Blog: Babylon and Beyond

In the Fall of 2007, Ramadi, Iraq signed the first payroll for trained women in the police corps. Located 70 miles west of Baghdad, Ramadi was once a bastion of support for Saddam Hussein. Now, in this city once considered "the meanest" place in Iraq, and "the graveyard of the Americans," women are patrolling the streets and protecting their homes and families.

The women had seen female insurgents blow themselves up with suicide vests. Some of those women were getting through security checkpoints because the Muslim culture prohibits them from being searched by men. The new female recruits said they thought they could help to prevent such attacks.

"Genan" is the mother of three, and is seven months pregnant:

Right now, our province is safe and peaceful. But anything could shake that up and we could be in danger

Female U.S. soldiers are role models for Iraqi women. Genen says:

They left their children at home, not a few houses away, but thousands of miles away," Genan said. "If American women can do it, we can do it."

The $500.00 a month paycheck is welcome to these women, many of whom are widows, facing not only the trials of supporting themselves and a family, but living with gravely disapproving tribal customs. Some fear for their lives. According to the International Herald Tribune, Ramadi's police force has grown from 200 in 2006 to 8,000 today. The sole police academy in Iraq is in Diyala Province. The women from around Iraq train under the same regimen as the men, where they live away from their homes and family for a month.

For most of the women, the training program is the first time they've been away from home, and the military and Iraqi police have tried to ease those concerns. Their two tents, complete with bunk beds and air conditioners, are separated from the men. They have their own bathrooms and female U.S. soldiers guard their area.

In the once-al Qaida-stronghold of Diyala Province, twenty-one women recently graduated the police academy. Clad in the full uniform worn by the male academy graduates - blue shirts and black pants - the women are trained to use machine guns and pistols, to handcuff and search autos and individuals. In addition to policewomen, an unarmed and unpaid security element known as the Daughters of Iraq, graduated the same academy, performing the same difficult training, and are now patrolling neighborhoods dressed in their customary flowing black abayas.

More than nine suicide attacks have been carried out by women in Diyala this year, part of a wave of over twenty female suicide attacks countrywide. Citing a void in security measures, a U.S. military spokesman says, "...in Iraqi culture it is very difficult to search women. We had to find a way to fill this gap."

Iraqi police chief, Lt. Col. Sattar Jabbar, comments:

This will break down a big wall between us and the community," he said. "They can get information so quick, woman to woman.

The 1st Airborne Division has worked closely with the Iraqi Army to organize and train the Daughters of Iraq, designed to somewhat mirror the volunteer mission of the Sons of Iraq in standing against terrorism in their communities. Many of the women in the Daughters of Iraq are "widows of Iraqi policemen slain by al-Qaida."

We see female police in America and we want to be like them," said Shahia Hassan Alwan, the widowed mother of six. "It is a dream we want to make true. We want to use all the power we have to help our country.

Here we see joyful women celebrating an opportunity to protect and support their families, against the despicable cowards who would strap on a suicide belt or plant an IED on the roadside. God bless these women.