 Good morning. Let me welcome you to this bright sunny and not yet rainy morning for a discussion of police and counter-insurgency. My name is Daniel Serwer. I'm vice president for Centers of Innovation here at USIP. And one of those, one of the activities under Centers of Innovation is something we call the Initiative for Security Sector Governance, which has been very ably led by Bob Perito, who has for many years now relentlessly pursued the issue of police in war as the title of this particular book. And those of you who haven't seen the book that we're talking about this morning, it's got this nice cover. It's not published by USIP, it's published by Lynn Reiner, and there are order forms outside. This is an extraordinary book. A book that is very hard-hitting, that means there's no words about some of the failures that have occurred. In what we increasingly recognize is one of the most critical functions in post-conflict, let's call them that for the moment, stability operations. A subject that has really stumped us a good deal, and it stumps us particularly in the United States government for reasons I've never quite understood. We never developed a national police force. We don't have any national interior ministry. We simply don't have at the federal level all the institutions that many other countries have developed for law and order purposes. So there's a general problem. I don't think, I don't know of any country that feels it's gotten police right, but there's a specific problem for the Americans, which is that we just are institutionally ill-prepared for this subject. It's hard-hitting, but I want to emphasize right from the first that the criticisms are not aimed at the people who do this work. We have an extraordinary array of people, both military and civilian, government officials, contractors, who have devoted themselves in recent years to training and preparing police, not only in the more distant past in the Balkans, but more recently in Iraq and Afghanistan, and they are not only committed and devoted, but do an extraordinary amount of work under extraordinarily dangerous conditions. So this isn't about the commitment and courage of the individuals, I don't doubt for a moment. This is about the programs, our own capacity to administer them and to implement them, about the goals of those programs and whether they've been well conceived. The greatest service, it seems to me, we can do to those who courageously do this work is to fix what's broken in these programs. It's with those few words of tribute to those who courageous few at the front lines that I ask Bob Perrito to make the first presentation. We'll go through the panel in the order that they're seated. They come from an extraordinary array of backgrounds as is proper for this subject, from the military, from criminal justice academia, from security studies, from Mark works on government effectiveness essentially. This is an extraordinary panel with diverse perspectives and I expect a stimulating discussion. Bob, please lead us off. Good morning. Thank you all for coming. In the beginning when we thought about this subject, I thought, well, this is going to be nice of you about four or five people and the audience will all sit around and have coffee. But my assistant told me last night we had 135 RSVPs, which I think speaks to the importance of this subject, which I think is finally finding its time in the Washington policy process. The book, which Dan showed you, really began with a conversation about a little over two years ago. It was Dan and Quantico. I was speaking to a group of Marine officers who had just returned from Iraq and at the end of my presentation, one of the officers raised his hand and he said, Sir, after the fighting died down in Al Anbar province, but the insurgency was still continuing, he said my unit was given the job of training the Iraqi police. We looked on the internet, we asked questions of our chain of command, we sought advice and he said we just couldn't come up with a curriculum for doing this work or much guidance at all. And he said, did we miss something? And I said, no, I don't think you missed anything because I don't think there's anything in the literature on this subject. This is an issue which really hasn't been addressed. After that conversation, I came back to my office and I was talking to Professor Bailey and I asked this question with some temerity. Could we answer this question? Because this is a huge question. The question is what is the role of local police in combating an insurgency, specifically in a situation where U.S. military forces are engaged in a counterinsurgency fight in defense of a host government? And if we could define that role, then how would we train those indigenous police to perform that function? This question was certainly relevant in Iraq and extremely relevant in Afghanistan today. The fact that there is nothing, and we then checked and looked very seriously through the literature on this topic, brought us to the conclusion that we ought to make the effort, that it was worth to try and we ought to write something that would try to plug that gap. But in order to address this topic in its infinite complexities, we thought there were a lot of issues out there that we really needed to do some thinking about and those issues will be reflected in the presentations of the panel this morning. Do local police have a role in controlling insurgency and terrorism following an intervention by an international military force? What is the division of labor under those circumstances between the international military, the local military, and the local police? How should local police perform their duties? How should they be trained, and what is their role? And if you look at the literature, it turns out to be contributing to the legitimacy of the local government, not so much in performing security functions. But how does all of that fit together? And then if you get those things right and you answer those questions, what's the role of the supervisory organizations, the ministries, the parliaments, the executive, that all are responsible for the conduct and performance of the police? And then if you've addressed all those issues, then you have to think about the United States. And as Dan suggested, in the United States, we have some bureaucratic deficiencies, and we have some structural challenges, and we need policies, and we need funding, and we need personnel to actually go out and do this work. So we decided to do the book, and we started out by looking at the experiences that the U.S. has had in Iraq and Afghanistan, which have not been successful. Just a couple of examples. In 2007, in Iraq, the Iraqi National Police were guilty of acting as sectarian death squads. They were taken offline by the U.S. military. Their leaders were arrested and they were retrained before they could be put back in the fight. In Afghanistan, very recently, both General McChrystal and the former National Intelligence Chairman Admiral Blair said that many people in Afghanistan record the Afghan National Police as a greater threat to their security than the Taliban. And so we have problems with these programs. So we looked at that experience. We then looked back over the experiences that we've had, and many of you have been in those programs because I was there with you. That shows you how old I am. Starting in Panama and working up through Somalia and El Salvador and all of these other operations, where we learned lessons and where we did get some things right. And so we tried to catalog those and make them available. And then we looked at the experiences of counterinsurgencies and counterterrorism and countercrime. And we looked at the theory and the practice and we looked at successful case studies. And we tried to find what was the essence of all of that experience and bring it together in a way that made some sense and was coherent. And then we looked at the training regimes and what we were doing, what we failed to do and what might make sense. And then we looked at the structural problems. We took a security sector reform approach and we looked at what are the institutions of government that are required if you're going to go about and do these programs. And then finally we thought about what are the changes that might be required in the U.S. government to make the U.S. government perform more effectively. And so with that overview, I'll turn it over to the panel. Thank you. Lieutenant Colonel Robert Baird. You understand that? Yeah, I think it's better if you deliver your initial remarks to the camera. We'll get you better. Got it. Hi, good morning. My name is Lieutenant Colonel Robert Baird. I see some friends in the audience. I'm at the Marine Corps Center for Regular Warfare in Quantico. The Center for Regular Warfare, and some of this you'll see in the discussions here when you tie insurgency, criminal activity, terrorism, violence, and stability operations, that's all encompassed under a regular warfare as far as the joint operating concept. So we deem this all under a regular warfare so I come at it from that perspective. I was in Iraq in 2006 and in Afghanistan in 2004 and principally in Iraq, we dealt with significant challenges with building the police there and we're continuing to see those challenges on through to Afghanistan to this day. So my perspective is about a year ago, I literally wandered in, found Madeleine and walked into Bob Prito's office and said, hey, I got a problem. I'm at the center and we're looking at police development. You got anything on that? About a year later than his original discussion is when I kind of walked up and had the same issue. So this has been a long-standing challenge. We look at capability development in the force. What do we need as a military to be successful in these environments? How do you define that environment? If you can't see the slide, General Conway is a comment on the Marine Corps and basically he articulates that we're going to see a blend here, a hybrid blend between traditional and regular tactics between decentralization and planning and execution of non-state actors as well as state actors. So the definitions of war are changing and blending and we're seeing what has been termed as a regular warfare. So what does that look like when we look at these various challenges? You see forces that are out there with the regular tactics. They also use conventional capabilities such as rockets, mortars. They then use criminality and terrorism and that's what's defined as a hybrid threat in our nomenclature. They use that simultaneity where they'll adapt, have a mix of conventional, unconventional, state, non-state, very hard to identify what are we targeting when we roll in an attempt to use force to attack or deter or dissuade them in the battle space. But it's all about political objectives. These pictures here are from the governance center in Ramadi in about 2006. So you can see the Marines sandbagging the governance center, basically the equivalent of the any of the county government complexes here in the United States. I do that to illustrate what we're talking about here. We're talking about very violent environments where governance is literally under attack. They're violently opposed sometimes by insurgents trying to take over but sometimes by just detractors and terrorists. You also have the aspects of it that it's not just a military aspect. We're fully aware as a military force that it takes other activities, political economics, developmental to get at this but it's this political power that's the central issue here using control of that and how do you gain legitimacy, the will of the people that's best done through that police force that's engaging as a government element right there with the people and if they're legitimate, the people see the government as more legitimate providing essential services, providing immediate security, helping them with their challenges. Obviously for the Marine Corps we're not new to training police. There's a picture of the Haitian gendarmerie being inspected by a Marine in 1915 so roughly 100 years later we have a Marine in Afghanistan training the Afghan police so if we think this is some kind of transitional requirement for forces to do this it's not so. We see it both the challenge is that the general purpose forces are prohibited from training police by law as a capability so it's done in Iraq and Afghanistan by exception so our challenge is what capability needs to be retained in the forces that's addressed kind of in the book of the limitations of military forces in training police we're not to protect and serve our missions are relatively different so there's a challenge here that is a gap in non-military capability of a need for a capability in the government to be able to do that and quickly and in that high threat environment it also gets at how effective are you training the police is it numbers I've seen vast numbers of police trained and then I go there and I say well okay we're all those guys that are trained well it doesn't they don't they aren't capable so then you start peeling the great back and you say okay how many arrests have they done how many convictions have they done how many times has someone been sent to jail and oh by the way maybe brought back in and rehabilitated or pulled back out and given a job or something like that so those are significant challenges in training the police I've also observed as we developed a police force in Fallujah and greater Al-Ambar province that there's a greater framework for the rule of law you have if you can't see it in the back you have the judiciary police and corrections we're well aware of this framework as we go in and try and partner with that police force the challenge is okay who's got the judiciary reform who's working in that high threat environment those corrections there are people who are doing it and there's very capable of doing it the challenge is in that high threat environment that immediate activity that you need to get all these detained combatants somehow process somehow vetted somehow separated and there's a morphing of what are these police supposed to do are they supposed to fight insurgents and they certainly can be effective given police intelligence and the capability to root out what criminality is in a given environment but it's when you pair them to a military force they're not trained and equipped as a military force nor should they be and that's addressed really by the gentlemen in their book talking about the limitations of military capability and then you get into more bigger issues that frankly are beyond luckily my scope which is okay we're after the rule of law whose law is it is Islamic law is it Roman, Judeo, Christian what law are we attempting to do here because that's important to make sure that you're engaging them at their level why it's about legitimacy so are you coming in with a foreign concept are you coming in with the concept that is their concept and assisting them corruption tremendous difficulty and challenge for a uniform service to get at corruption and to to look at ways to vet these leaders because as I've seen it it's the leaders that are key that identified the proper police leader have you trained him have you developed him have you vetted him and are you monitoring him and most importantly I think are you protecting him are they able to be intimidated or worse yet murdered I think the last point there most only one justice vice the rule of law as a pragmatic person who's seen the challenge of these people they don't want some philosophical idea of rule of law and all this they want justice if something's taken from them if they have been abused if they have something that's all we want and it's really about a hundred years ago I think we had you know that that kind of thing going on out west in the wild west so we need to look at it from a justice perspective providing immediate justice to them that's what adversaries give that's what a Taliban might give is justice it might be ruthless justice but it's justice security and development have a fascinating relationship as I've observed in both locations and I'm trying to speak broadly to not get us focused on a single conflict because that tends to unravel any dialogue about this but security will enable that development we've seen how you need that security capability to bring in the development but development also enhances security by reducing those grievances you know then we put them to work we allow them to have jobs free market so the coalition forces have to provide a bubble around those police forces and allow them to develop that's a very complex balance on the ground when you're really talking about how do we partner how do we operate how do we leave an operating base and you have to do it effectively and not just do it by name or by title well give me a few of them so I can go do the operation it has to be building their capability and supporting and then finally as we saw effectively in Fallujah the concept then was Team Fallujah but the idea of partnership between the army the police and the coalition forces it literally got down to all three being in one location at one spot three of them together it built trust it built cooperation it built unity of effort so that they then begin to get along because they also have internal problems between police and army I think I'd offer this it takes time and that's not something necessarily that our culture is attuned to up top is Ramadi Iraq and the western capital of Al-Ambar province the provincial capital in 2005 the bottom is basically 2008 is the transition ceremony in the bottom in 2008 when that government center you saw in the first photos is transition back to Iraqi control so this is the celebration here roughly three years later who would have made that projection that in 2005 when it was going very tough when it was very hard going would it have turned around like that and that's really the challenge that you need to make sure that as we develop these programs they're seamless and that whatever long term government programs of a larger long term capacity we in the uniform services are not countering but enabling and transitioning back to so that we can step back and allow what I would consider professionals to go in and pick up where we left off so that it's a seamless transition why because you're talking about a person on the ground and they're going to go well wait a minute you've been helping me who's going to help me now my facilitator so I would offer that and I guess this is what that gets at it's about that guy doesn't look like any of the police we're used to and in fact most of them early on do hide their faces just because of the challenges they face but I think we're getting better as a force about advising and building capabilities and this book is a tremendous resource for people who are getting ready to go familiarization with advising police and understanding the broader problems as I talked about rule of law, development and frankly the limitations of military force and the benefits of professionals in law enforcement development I think that concludes my 10 minutes thank you Lieutenant Colonel Baird Professor David Bailey co-author of the police at war good morning everybody I'm going to go right to the heart of what I think the issue is for this morning which is how do you what is the role of indigenous police in a counterinsurgency situation in any operating theater where there is still ongoing conflict and how should those police be trained I have two general points to make today that are about what I consider to be the shortcomings of American training of police abroad in these situations in the past our training has been much too militarized and we have by doing that we have lost the comparative advantage that the police can contribute to legitimate government and the standing up of legitimate government in those theaters secondly our training has been too technically western we have modeled it too much on the police practices of developed countries and we've not fought nearly enough about what you need in non-western settings now let me talk about first the training I'm going to say something about the rationale for what we recommend and then how do you get it done first about what the training should emphasize we think it should emphasize three orientations that indigenous police should have in their heads as they do policing and those three orientations are the following first to be available available to solicitations from the public with respect to the grievances the problems that are on their mind secondly it should be to be responsive to requests from individuals I keep stressing individuals not government individuals the population who are the ones who are feeling the need for legitimate and effective government thirdly they must be taught to be fair and this means to treat policing as the delivery of a public good they must not be corrupt and they must not be in the hip pockets of politicians and furthermore they must distribute security in a fair and impartial way impartial way these are the three I think we think motivations are orientations that the police should carry in to their job and the delivery of police services we think this is the core of what police training should focus on now clearly police are going to have to do some other technical things they're going to have to guard borders probably they're going to have to control crowds they're going to have to collect intelligence they're going to have to be proactive sometimes with respect to counter-terrorism understood at the same time when they do all of these things they are tacked on to a police force that behaves in the way that I have described so what I am saying is that the key to legitimating government in such a theater is for a police that services the public with respect to what they need and does so in an impartial way it is not technical proficiency in preserving scenes of crime in doing forensic analysis with respect to communications with respect to using fingerprints and all of that those can be important but if you begin there you've made a mistake I think you have to begin with respect to the philosophy in the heads of the people and justice to individuals and having said that we propose a training curriculum which is on the board I'm going to let you people read it for yourself I won't read it to you I assume most of you can read so have a look have a look all of this of course is in the book which makes a lovely Christmas gift for everybody in your family so you can study it at your leisure now let me compare what we suggest we think this should be the core of a curriculum abroad now what we did was we took this and we said ok if this is what we think should be done what exactly is happening now and we tried to get information on training programs whether they're UN, multinational done in Afghanistan, Haiti, wherever we tried to get copies of this and I've got to tell you what I've learned is exactly right if you try to if you go into the US government and say I would like to see an array of curriculum that have been developed that we've delivered abroad where did it begin, where does it end up it doesn't exist there is no library not only in the US government that has all of these training programs but it doesn't exist in Canada or Britain it doesn't exist in the UN a person like Bob when he is in the field and asks for help it doesn't be provided because that basic library of resource does not exist and I consider that a scandal we have spent billions of dollars on training abroad and that is not a matter of public record period alright we then, we did take a look at a few that we were a few curricula that we were given by friends this is stuff that fell off the back of the truck because that's the only way that we could get it and this is what we find with respect to training programs that were given in Iraq Afghanistan, Bosnia, Kosovo and Timor-Leste we found that about 50% of training is devoted to officer safety and firearms training standard operating procedures and this means how you stop cars, how you search buildings how you look for IEDs how you stop and frisk, how you do road blocks that's another 25% that's 75% of the curricula that is normally given training in local law is no more than 10% in the curricula that we looked at and finally, core policing the kind of principles that I've talked to you about is less than 20% of the training that is currently given whether international missions or American missions or any other missions abroad and I consider that not good enough and exemplifies what I think the problem with what's going on in training at the moment now, why do we recommend the kind of training that I've said and here, actually Bob Beard has probably given this portion of my talk it's basically because the police have a comparative advantage that the military do not have military can provide security but you do not provide legitimacy by an indigenous government by either the indigenous military's or the foreign military activity it's essential because within that bubble, he used that good word within a bubble of security that the military can provide the police can then work and do their thing their comparative advantage and this has now become fairly standard in international coin doctrine is to win hearts and minds the military have trouble as a result of what they do in winning hearts and minds that should be what the police do other government institutions are going to be important as well, the phrase we're now using is whole of government but to get those other government activities up and going you also need the kind of you also need policing so you need military to provide a bubble and then you need the police who act in a legitimating way the implication here is that there has to be that there is a division of labor that shifts over time between the military and the police basically, the military does clearing the police and military then do the holding and finally the building of civil government is the police function without the military now the problem here is that this is a very difficult very intricate dance for commanders to bring off when do you shift how do you mix these things you get requisite security at the same time you don't lose the comparative advantage which is getting the people on your side how do you get that at the same time and this I would suggest to you is something that the making of this decision the use of these resources in a way that changes over time in terms of its composition in terms of its focus is the key decision in a counterinsurgency theater and it is difficult it is very similar domestically to the decision that American and other police commanders face in facing hostile crowds when do you use con-dine force when do you hold back when do you have reserves there when do you use a soft approach when do you use a hard approach we have analogs for this in other areas and I begin to think that we need to share this kind of problem of hard force soft force when facing changing a security situation I am going to put up here next oh I do this page no that's not it can you do this sorry there we are I want to put up now just as a summary of what I've said with respect to the justification of how you use the police and how you use the military read these three principles I feel that some people won't be able to see them would you mind if I read them out loud would you like to are there that illiterate people there maybe shall I read them or you I can read okay let me do this the great effectiveness multiplier I don't like to do this the great effectiveness multiplier in the use of state power against violence is the allegiance and support of the public fundamental three in order for governments to gain public support responsibility for security should be entrusted in so far as possible to police deployed among the population who minimize the use of force of the protected standards of human rights I hope this is blindingly obvious to all of you third, capturing, killing or imprisoning people committing violent acts are unlikely to be effective as a long term solution to insecurity unless guided by precise intelligence identifying perpetrators or infrastructure I want to make a comment about these three principles and that is these principles are common to three areas of law enforcement crime prevention against violent ordinary violent crime and well as counterterrorism and insurgency it's interesting as we went back and looked at the literatures in all of these areas we kept coming back to these principles and if you look at the information on crime prevention that's been generated by the national institute of justice in the last 40 years you will find that these principles surface and the people who are now working in the counterinsurgency area are also rediscovering these principles I think they're powerful and they all turn on the essential point of getting the public on the side of government and how you're doing alright now as Bob points out you do have to bring together at one point you have to put it this way you have to shape what you can do in policing with respect to what the environment allows you to do that's this intricate dance that I talk about and if somebody will poke this thing again this is don't take this to the bank but it's a suggestive that with the security level the police role changes in war it is none or is then phases in between where what the military do and what the police do they do simultaneously but the role of the police has to change until finally you get down to a benign security situation and then you do full scale policing now as I say how you do this in particular theaters how you read this, how you assess and what the mix is going to be I can't tell you standing here commanders have to figure out for themselves but they have to be aware that this isn't an either or we're talking about military force being used as can die in force maybe by other security agencies and at the same time a modulation over time but never forget where you want to get and where you want to get is a legitimate government capable of standing on its own and serving its own people that's where you want to get sure that in providing security you do not lose sight of that end of that end state alright let me finish up by simply saying this how do you know when you get the priorities right and you've got a police force that does the good things that I'm talking about what's the test for a legitimate force and I will give you the test that we suggest in the book it is this it is do parents teach their children parents in this country that you're working in do parents teach their children that when they're away from home and they need help of any sort that they go and look for a cop I submit to you that if the answer to that is yes you've got a legitimate police force if the answer to that is no you've not got the legitimate police force that's where you want to go and let me say this I've tried this test in a variety of countries developed underdeveloped in different audiences in the United States the reaction is always the same people nod their heads and I can see some smiles out there in this room as well they recognize the fairness of this and what's especially interesting to me is not only does the public recognize this as a fair test but so do cops that the police the people you're training can't deny this as worthwhile achieving so already you've got them at least shall I say on the defensive accepting that this is something that they would consider to be a fair test of their own activities so this is the test of where you want to get your police force in several contexts of insecurity thank you thank you David you're a tough professor you give a hard standard to meet but an important one I'm going to insert a little advertisement here and invite David and others in the room to submit curricula however obtained from whatever truck to roll off to the international network to promote the rule of law which USIP administers on the internet and if they can be made available publicly that is we would make them available through international network to promote the rule of law and I'll ask institute staff in the room to make sure that brochures for that internet based form are available on the table outside we have William Rosenau next of the center for defense analysis and we've asked William to be critical and we look forward to his remarks well thank you very much it's a pleasure to be here this morning I don't have a formal presentation I'd like to just make a series of comments and observations the first of which is the superb quality of this book I mean I can't say enough good things about the police at war this is a huge contribution to the literature when I started working on my dissertation in the mid 1990s it was on Vietnam and US internal security assistance to Vietnam I discovered that there actually was no literature not a single monograph not a single article a thematic article on the subject of police and counterinsurgency I think David and Bob have made a huge contribution in this respect and as Bob Baird suggested as well I think this is a very important guide for practitioners so I'm going to be a little bit critical but I want to begin by saying this is a superb work one of the things I was struck by in the commentary this morning really resonated with me and it certainly comes out in the book is this whole question of the militarization of the police and this in the context of counterinsurgency is a absolutely perennial problem we the US government struggled with this in Southeast Asia and struggled with this in every sort of environment conflict environment in which we tried to train up indigenous police forces and the authors are quite right in highlighting the dangers of this proclivity I mean one of the reasons we tend to over militarize these police forces is the people who are doing the police training in many situations are our military officers are senior enlisted officers one can't blame them in many respects for doing this but the dangers are self-evident I mean only the police can actually do police work soldiers infantrymen can provide security but only the police can do that kind of core policing that the authors talk about and if we have the police now this has been apparent in Iraq but really in Afghanistan and really recently in Marjah I saw a picture a month ago of an Afghan national policeman carrying an RPG in this fight for Marjah and there's something fundamentally wrong with that image it was it was startling and it was extremely depressing I'm not going to go on at any kind of length the shortfalls of the ANP but I am going to come back to it because I think this gets it at the one criticism it's not really a criticism I just I have a different approach in some respects to this this question of police roles in counterinsurgency and it really comes down to this for me fundamental question about policing and the state okay I mean not that many countries there are a lot of countries in the world that have police forces okay and by police uniformed representatives of the state but not every country has this this is our ideal when we are training police forces abroad to create these uniformed representatives of the state who will somehow by their good works, by their public spiritedness, by their the trust that the public has for them build legitimacy for the state and I think we've somehow wrapped that up with counterinsurgency in a way that is not always useful okay or even necessary I mean I think they're environments in which yes we do want to create a national police force we do want to have a force that is seen as a representative of the state that performs its duties with professionalism that does those core policing functions that does that democratic policing that we hold out as an ideal but I wonder in many parts of the world and I think the authors they hinted this okay outside of the OECD world this may be a goal that is simply unachievable it may be treated with sort of an aspirational respect but in terms of actually being able to build a police force that meets these criteria that's going to promote legitimacy I think it may be simply too hard and I think in places like Afghanistan we're seeing this okay the other thing I would mention about this is the notion of building police forces is difficult okay building democratic accountable professional effective police forces is difficult we haven't had a lot of success traditionally in doing this okay as hard as that is that is a drop in the bucket in terms of challenges compared to building legitimacy I mean where have we really been successful except in a few possible you know perhaps Germany perhaps occupied Japan in building legitimacy of another state I mean that to me is is a goal that is simply is simply too hard to achieve in many situations okay and I think we need to recognize that what I would propose actually not certainly not original with me is we certainly need if not police we need policing okay we need people who are going to provide order in some legitimate way in some circumstances that is going to come outside of the state in fact in most of the world that's where it does come from okay in West Africa in Southeast Asia okay in South Asia Central Asia customary institutions local institutions tribal non-statutory Bruce Baker has written I think brilliantly on this of sort of non-statutory security forces in West Africa and how ranging from neighborhood watch groups you know all the way up to paramilitary forces to commercial organizations okay and I think those who are engaged in the business of counterinsurgency need to be alert to these structures and to have a framework for assessing which of these structures if any are going to be appropriate in the conditions in which they operate in some circumstances yes we may very well decide we absolutely have to build state policing structures in other circumstances we may decide you know what there's a whole array of sort of crime and policing that can be dealt with by sort of organic indigenous structures that you know which people might not wear uniforms but which are likely in some circumstances to have a lot more legitimacy and capacity than this made up force something like the ANP which just to come back to that question I think I don't want to I don't want to belabor the point but I think our experiences in Afghanistan I think have caused some people on the ground particularly military officers many of you are familiar with the community defense initiative rechristened the local defense initiative and now I understand it has a new name local security or something of that effect basically a product of it's basically militia building it's basically village self defense forces and I think it reflected a frustration on the part of local commanders with the capacity or lack thereof of the ANP and the prospect for building that capacity in any realistic amount of time so that's sort of a dog's breakfast of comments and observations again I want to congratulate the authors on a truly superb job I have a slightly different approach in one area but I think overall this book is invaluable and I urge you all to run out and get a copy give it to your friends put it under the Christmas tree or Hanukkah bush or whatever but thank you very much thank you William thank you for reminding us that not every place thinks that a uniform top on the corner is necessarily a good thing Mark Cedra what's the future hold that wasn't quite my mandate but I think I will touch on that but first of all let me put all your minds at ease that this just isn't a US problem that even in Canada and I spent the last I spent eight years living and working in Europe where I was consulting the German and British governments on these issues and they're similarly befuddled with many of these challenges I am also at first I'd like to thank USIP and Bob Perrito for inviting me here to speak today I also want to pay tribute to the book which I think is a fantastic contribution to what is in many ways a non-existent literature on this subject and I think that in many ways the challenge that the book puts forth is similar to that for policing and in terms of promoting democratic policing and post-conflict and in wartime societies similar to the challenge that faces the wider process of security sector reform which is that the principles the fundamental principles of police development are there's a wide consensus on them they're well established but in terms of implementation frameworks how to actually apply these principles in the field those frameworks are sorely lacking it seems at times that when reformers go into the field they're operating under the assumption that they're in a vacuum or even worse is that they're in some sort of ideal type environment so they're applying these principles in many ways in an unrealistic a historical and a contextual fashion and if you act in such a way you can do harm and I would argue that in Afghanistan it's not just a matter that the process has failed or that it's faced significant setbacks but I'd say it's done harm to the society and done harm to prospects for peace building and I'll elaborate on that as I go on in my talk and I'm not here talking about intentions and about individuals as it's already been mentioned because I think the individuals many of them have the right intentions that the programs themselves have the right intentions the structures are inadequate and delivery of these aid programs has been a problem but let's also remember that the complexity of the reforms the scope of the reforms that we're talking about would be difficult for western countries the United States Canada the European countries to implement within their own borders let alone asking some of the poorest countries in the world facing um debilitating insecurity and poverty to implement these type of reforms within five years or maybe if you're lucky within 10 years so we have to be realistic what is needed and so here I will look forward to a certain degree well I think we have to do a better job at conceptualizing implementation strategies implementation strategies suitable to these particularly complex environments and here's where I particularly pay tribute to this book because I think it does provide a framework in and of itself talking about curricula and so on for implementation I think we have to be modest and realistic I think that there's been a lack of modesty and realism when we work in these environments I think that we have to understand these local contexts better and actually to contextualize these processes this is core development principle that you contextualize reforms that you contextualize aid program that they should be based on a fundamental understanding of the local society culture politics and history but tell me where this has really been done effectively in recent memory we tend to still use templates western oriented templates that we transfer and transpose from one context to the next and it's not working fundamentally though and this is the tough part we have to change the way we do business the modus operandi just will not cut it anymore and particularly this gets to time frames which has come up by the remarks of several of the presenters you can't do this in five years you can't even do it in ten so when William talked about realistic time frames well the realistic time frame is almost generational and the reality is that if you want to promote effective police if you want to create community police structures your commitments are going to have to have some staying power finally in terms of moving forward I'll borrow an idea that was presented in a paper by Andrew Rathmel formerly of RAND and now the Lieber advisory group who said that there's a need to professionalize security sector reform and I would add to this of course police reform which is an aspect of security sector reform what he means by professionalize is to create a new cadre of experts not just policing experts per se but experts who can apply these principles frameworks and curricula in these complex post-conflict complex conflict societies it's about creating the right structures and the book and its recommendations gives several examples of structures that can be created and there are some I understand already in the United States such as the civilian reserve corps which I think is a real step forward and a model that can be emulated by the rest of the world if it is to be successful let me say a few words about what went wrong in Afghanistan because I think that even though Afghanistan it's one case it's a particularly complex case I think it's still telling some of the things that did go wrong first of all there were two lost years in the process the first two years of the process 2002 and 2003 there was no strategy up until 2007-2008 there was no one framework or document you could point to that says there how police reform is being undertaken that's how these are the fundamental guidelines for the process there was no consensus among the donors and there was no consensus among the different security agencies within the Afghan government and in essence what happened is the police the keys for the police were handed over to strong men and warlords and this is what I mean when I talk about very severe harm that has been done to the process the second problem is coordination so early on in the process there were two main actors Germany and the United States and I would say that coordination was extremely poor I can tell you that I did a lot of field work in 2003-2004 and 2005 and I often felt like I was a shuttle diplomat going back and forth from the U.S. embassy to the German police program because I was passing on messages they had no idea what each other were doing for the most part and one really telling example is that I was told this is what the Germans told me at the United States at the time in 2004 wasn't even sharing its curriculum for its regional training centers to the German police program perhaps from what David said maybe there was no curriculum I don't know but this is but certainly this was a problem and that there was some real underlying tension there now much of this has been addressed over time and now through things like cross appointments through things like the international police coordination boards or coordination structures you've dealt with some of these problems perhaps the biggest reason is now that there's one overwhelming player and that's the U.S. so when there's one big player coordination becomes less of a problem the third issue is resources in the beginning of the process there wasn't enough resources the Germans really didn't have the ambition or the inclination to reform an entire national police and really just focused on the upper echelons of the police there is always in the process been lacking human resources so I mean mentors in the field trainers at headquarters and so on but I would say that in the last few years there's almost been too much resources now what do I mean by too much because when you have a force that faces such huge debilitating gaps how could there be too much resources the structures to absorb this resources and that's why you see equipment going missing on mass and I have so many anecdotes I could turn green but if I could start to recite them here really disturbing stuff about how the wastage of resources I think also when we talk about resources we have to talk about contracting of private security and private military companies I think that they are a fact on the ground they're needed in many respects because they provide resources that aren't available within states and within governments but I think that there has to be an understanding of the need to systematize this process systematize collaboration and working level contacts with these organizations fourthly and I just have two more here is the militarization of this process and I won't belabor this point because it's been addressed but there has been a serious militarization of the Afghan national police and I think I absolutely one of the things I enjoy most about this book is this concept of core policing of responsiveness of availability and even handedness or fairness I can tell you that if you were able to achieve that in the Afghan national police that would be such a you can forget about all of the technical requirements that would be such a major step forward for the legitimacy of the state and peace building within Afghanistan but the focus really has been to prepare the Afghan police to serve as another cog in the counterinsurgency machine and to relieve pressure on coalition forces and that simply of course has not worked as we've seen now I think that you also have to understand that there are different branches of the police some branches of the police can have a more counterinsurgency role like the Afghan national civil order police which has been one of the most successful branches of the police has received more advanced training counterinsurgency and combat training however that doesn't mean you ignore the community police because they are the main actor who is interacting with the Afghan population at the local grassroots level they do establish the legitimacy of the state finally I think there's been the problem of quick fixes and this was mentioned in the last presentation in terms of reliance on non-state actors reliance on militia actors now in and of itself I'm supportive of looking to traditional security and justice structures where they are actually indigenous in many of these societies in rural areas of Afghanistan the main contact you have with the state is through the local police so if you don't do the police right you are undermining the legitimacy of the entire state building process for example it was in Marja recently after the offensive from what media reports say that the marines were welcomed in by tribal elders after the combat but they clearly said one thing take the police away we don't want them back so I think that in and of itself is very telling so what are some of the broader conclusions that we can draw on this well number one there's no shortcuts to the police unfortunately that this is a long term approach requiring long term investment of resources and you can't get around that in any way that we also need new structures in place to actually facilitate the type of framework that is being emphasized here within the book the police at war we need a more clearly defined model and new resolve to implement these structures and I would say just as a final remark that if you're not willing to make those type of commitments if you're not willing to do the work in terms of changing the way we do business establishing the necessary institutional coordination structures it's actually better not to get involved in these cases at all and to stay on the sidelines so that you can do harm thank you very much thank you very much Mark and thank you to the entire panel we have a room full of people who are experienced in this matter or who have some responsibility for it now and a great deal of interest in it so I'm going to invite people to come up to the microphones to ask questions or make comments Mark has challenged us in a way about the future let me throw in a first question can we meet that challenge David, Bob I invite you to outline maybe briefly the institutional changes that you suggest in the book at the same time I invite people to come up to the microphones to comment you have to come up and speak because otherwise just keep asking us questions and putting us on the spot he really is very good at this stuff but in Afghanistan we're at a point where we're finally rationality is beginning to dawn but to give you the level of the problem I just quote you two facts up until very recently the sequencing for the Afghan national police was recruit, deploy and then train only in the last few months as the ministry of the interior and all of the participating power has gotten together and agreed that now the sequencing will be recruit, train and then deploy and we're going to stop the practice of bringing in Afghan youth off the streets giving them a badge of gun in a uniform and then putting them out there and then some time later trying to round them up and bring them back and try to teach them what they should be doing so that's that's the first thing and the second thing is that a year ago the United Nations said there were 78,000 police officers in the Afghan national police a few weeks ago a state department, no a defense department senior official said there were 102,000 members of the Afghan national police and then he went on to say that our goal for next year was 134,000 Afghan national police there is no way that an institution can grow at that rate without serious there's no way that an institution can grow at that rate and that's sort of the environment in which we're trying to operate I think what David and I are proposing is a consolidation and a recognition first of all a recognition and secondly a consolidation of the problem that we face in a place like Afghanistan where you have a a police force that's new to the job that's largely illiterate and where attitudes are much more important than skills and where you're teaching people who have maybe never been in a classroom before and where it's very hard to communicate technical police skills but attitudes can be communicated and if we can do that we will have overcome we will have accomplished a major adjustment if the citizens of Afghanistan thought to tell their children that if you have a problem go talk to the police officer that would be an enormous change and one that would help us win the war David do you want to pick up let me let me just say this and I'm kind of reluctant to do it but I am going to say it are we likely to succeed in standing up legitimate governments in the places in most of the world that needs them? No we're not and it comes ultimately to the willingness of the international community of which America is an important part to commit to the long haul and so in other words Bob and I are saying some things that have to be done if you're interested in the long haul if I were to to kind of bet are we going to have the political commitment in our world to do that in the long haul I would have to bet against it nonetheless we're there we have to start the process and we have to start it right so I don't think there's any other alternative to start to do it right the long haul projection of success I think is probably realistically pretty bleak please introduce yourself I'm Chip Stewart the senior fellow at CNA, a think tank for law enforcement and I've been a fan of the efforts that have been underway by the authors of this book I've had a chance to sponsor David on a number of projects in the National Institute of Justice for 10 years and one of the things that strikes me that the charge of this panel has and people in this room is that I think Lieutenant Colonel Barrett covered this very very well where he talked about irregular warfare and how we have actually evolved into a different sort of state and our decision to enter into this it seems to me to be never informed by the principle reason of how do we get an exit strategy what does an end state look like and I would suggest that maybe we would start with some of the premises in the book that's been advanced as a goal of the end state so that the resources planning and development is seen as a series of efforts evolutionary in which there would be a stabilization and a bubble created a sense of before we go in to do the analysis and intelligence development about who could be police people courts people and corrections people and what kinds of sort of technologies could be used to support an illiterate population and I suggest there are several on the market today there has not been a confluence of this kind of thinking and my question is basically is that why is it that we don't factor in when we're talking about rule of law that we ought to have a police backed up by courts and corrections that are records based I mean that's not part of the going in I don't think that's a commander's intent in my impression that when you get directions to to occupy a country that this is part of it where it was with Japan and Germany I think Lieutenant Colonel I think this is in part a question for the military side I think I covered briefly that police development is not considered a general purpose force mission because of laws I think I think our nation of which the military is a reflection of believes that we should not have a militarized police force for our history shows in our the birth of the nation has a distinct separation of the military does this and police and domestic agencies do that so we're left with a gap in capabilities were we to create an organization whether it be civilian organization commission organization what have you that would train and deploy with the with the conventional general purpose forces it would allow for an appreciation on both sides and bringing it together because we put a firewall up of these regulations there by exception by exception makes it very difficult for example okay I'm going to take an infantry officer and make me a rule of law officer what does that look like what's this career development will it get promoted will it not get promoted so I if someone said create this tomorrow it's not within the current construct of what military forces are perceived by our nation and the people in the nation is what we do so that leaves us with okay we contract it I believe that the contracting solution while short term and important and maybe very qualified people is a legitimacy issue of not being government people representing the United States they're contracted to represent but there's a significant challenge there they're brave men and women they're out there doing it and they believe in the mission and a lot of them are former military that then go back so there's a lot of good people doing that it's just responsibilities government responsibilities if we foresee that Mark did you want to comment on this from the civilian side into the microphone please I think that's one of the big problems is not envisioning this from the beginning I know that in Afghanistan if you look at some of the early documentation surrounding the division of responsibilities for security sector reform there was almost a naive assumption that the security situation would sort itself out and the reality was the problem with also creating that division of labor in the beginning was that there wasn't any consideration for the level of resources each actor could bring to the table or the expertise so the United States took control of the army and were willing to invest quite a bit of money and human resources into the process the Germans just didn't have those type of resources available I mean that's talking about one particular case but in none of the cases that I've looked at and will continue to look at is police and considered a key aspect from the very beginning and in the context of state building I can think of perhaps no more important actor more more important process we talk often that you need security first before you can do development and build institutions and you need to build the legitimacy as has been often said of the state in order to move forward with institution building and democratization and so on and the police is such a key actor in doing this and so I would agree with the premise of your question absolutely please hi Julie Warble from the USA, thank you to USIP and to the panelists particularly to Bob and David for continuing to push our thinking on policing first a quick comment and then a question I'd very much like to see the dialogue evolve from police training to police development training is only the solution when the problem is a lack of knowledge or lack of skills and when you talk about really public administrative reform of the police there are multiple other areas that need to be addressed including the institutional capacity of the organization, the policy and legal framework and the overall environment in which police development occurs the question is really that as you all know we're conducting a number of internal reviews right now in the US government looking very closely at this question and I'd like to ask each of you for your top recommendation on what we should be thinking about in terms of rethinking how we deliver civilian police assistance and I might note that Julie is a leader in this area of security sector reform so suggestions you may may actually be used shall we we propose something Bob please I don't know what you're thinking about the last chapter oh okay we can talk about the last chapter yeah actually we should grad Julie out because she's been enormously helpful to USIP to the program that I run here and as a wonderful person and we're so grateful that she's here this morning you know in the final chapter of the book we talk about the changes that would be useful in the United States government if we wanted to do police reform if we wanted to do security sector reform you know in a more serious way we have enormous dark holes in the US government structure we don't have a national police force we don't have a department of the interior that actually looks at these kinds of issues and we don't have a lot of expertise and then we don't utilize effectively the expertise that we had and we've made a recommendation in the book that it would be very helpful to create an agency in the US government probably at the level of the executive officer the president that would bring together all of the talented people who do this kind of work and who want to do this kind of work and then give that agency the responsibility and the authority and the congressional support and the funding to actually carry this off this is a recommendation that's not unique with our book it's been made by a number of other people and I could quote you a list but absent that we're left in a circumstance now where we're trying to patch together and one of the one of the roles of the initiative that I had here at USIP is to try to offer some suggestions about how this can be done but there are other views on this on the panel I'm sure and the thoughts may be for Julie please Lieutenant Colonel I in our land bar I struggled with coordinating and synchronizing such development things like building of the police stations okay and so there was a fascinating dialogue of okay when do you build a police station and have the policemen there and have coalition security there and have it all synchronized so I would recommend we do at a tactical level synchronization I believe some of that's happening in the PRTs but what I think my real point is that I would recommend is we don't perceive as some handoff like I have police development then you have police development then I get it when it goes bad and then that we have to get as a government as it needs to move in the realm of conflict prevention that it needs to go ahead of collapse why because these international terrorists al-qaeda whomever are going to be in these countries we need them to be these other countries to build their capacity which USAID is tremendous at doing and so an organization to build the capacity for security cooperation before conflict so we're not picking up the pieces we've prevented the security declines so this organization shouldn't just be response oh it's all broken now we gotta fix it let's prevent that collapse and make it a cooperative effort and engage the problem is the government responds it isn't necessarily good proactively doing it but that'd be my recommendation I can certainly talk to you William Rosiner a couple of things almost 50 years ago 50 in the early days of the Kennedy administration there was a debate in the US government on this exact question who should have responsibility for training police forces overseas and some fascinating declassified documents this debate went back and forth well we should give it to the CIA well the CIA now it's too over the CIA shouldn't be doing it we should give it to the military former Rand employee came up with the he said no no no we don't want to give it to a bunch of colonels they're going to run around and create all these armies we decided to keep it where it was which was in AID the office of public safety and I would the office of public safety which basically ended in the mid-1970s after these revelations about supposed training of torturers and foreign police forces and in a sort of a post-watergate backlash against the US foreign policy in general eliminated and I did a little work looking at this AID and its predecessor organizations and their police training in the 50s and the 60s I think a lot of it was really good and I think there was an argument to be made for AID doing this work because of that development link very important and I would I wonder whether it might be worth looking back and looking at that experience with the office of public safety really doing an assessment of its capabilities and performance over time and look at this question about AID actually doing this in-house having this responsibility for it the other thing I'd mentioned and I touched on it in my comments wondering about the ability of the US government to identify and engage with these non-statutory groups that I discussed customary structures tribal structures Sharia courts this whole apparatus is rich array across the developing world of security providers some with more and some with less legitimacy and wondering whether the US government really has any ability to engage with those groups to identify those groups to work with those groups and where appropriate to promote security at that level so those would be my comments Mark, did you want to answer? I would agree I think you have to have an institution within the government that has ownership over security sector form and particularly police training it's been discussed and when we face that within Canadian government there's a lot of infighting over who has who should be controlling the resources and who should be directing the process but there seems to me like as a structure that also can develop an institutional memory which is often that we seem to be starting over every time we launch in SSR process in some ways I think that one thing that's also been mentioned is and when I say this I'm referring more also at the international level as well as the US to have almost this idea of creating a civilian expert core being able to deploy civilian assets including police trainers to the field quickly is one of the biggest problems so as a solution to that contractors have been relied upon but even there there's been some issues surrounding in some cases quality and transparency and accountability so I think various countries including the United States are looking at ways to establish these types of systems but I think that we're the long term that's key I concur absolutely with the idea of traditional structures my institution we're having a workshop looking at this the intersection between security sector form and traditional structures justice and security later this year is really critical and there's people doing fantastic work about that in the United States I think as many scholars were doing excellent work on that USIP being one of the key ones in Afghanistan and elsewhere finally I think this focus there has to be renewed focus on oversight because the governance aspect funny enough security sector form is a concept the innovation of it was to focus on governance not just train and equip and yet that seems to still be the odd man out there's this idea that we can do that later once the security situation is stabilized but if you want really to promote core policing if you want to promote honesty fairness and so on there has to be some oversight to ensure that that's being applied successfully and that there are consequences for things like corruption and impunity so I think that more of an emphasis within SSR and actually establishing these oversight accountability mechanisms and we're not talking about anything I'm not talking about pie in the sky I think very sophisticated ones you know on the basis but in some cases just core oversight structures thanks thank you David do you want to add anything I would note that USIP has done a lot of case studies on informal justice systems we haven't quite decided what to call them to tell you the truth the term legal pluralism has entered our lexicon it's one that troubles me a little bit I would note that we are building up to the publication of a rather thick volume of case studies of this sort please good morning my name is Walter Redman I'm the senior police advisor for the department of state bureau of international narcotics and law enforcement the INL bureau which has the ultimate responsibility on behalf of the US government civilian components for the development and training of implementing the international training programs and again thank you to USIP for as always putting on extremely valid and timely subject and discussion points Bob Perito when I saw Bob this morning his commentary to me was he first initially thought that state department would be picketing outside versus participating here Bob let me assure you that after listening to the presentations and of course the opportunity to hear and of course knowing David Bailey the pickets were put away we sent the message down hey go put the pickets away we're absolutely good and again quite frankly your subject matter as you've looked at lessons learned where we went wrong your tasks were almost like shooting fish in a barrel as it pertains to Iraq Afghanistan clearly but your points were obviously well thought and quite valid as we look and continually review our process we have been caught up in the fierce urgency of now in responding to these requirements that have been placed upon us in working with our military clearly I think that we especially those of us on the civilian side have acknowledged the over militarization of these programs as our militaries had the role as we are serving in a war zone as our training programs are akin to and linked to the operational concerns on in the field you know as far as the requirements for personnel that in turn does not match up which what David Bailey's points were with the development of a civilian force absolutely correct and it's that very very significant and very very careful balance of moving into the role of police primacy and the role I would remind you that as you judge your law enforcement or police agency which is a constantly moving even in the United States as we learn every day you know there are parents not far from here who don't send their children directly to the police for help so that occurs but the difference is Chief Lanier and her staff work hard every day and changing that and again those are some of the components that we hope to instill I also have to acknowledge that I am one of the individuals now I didn't throw anything off a truck but I am one of the individuals that David Bailey called two years ago I spent almost four years in Iraq working and developing the program along with our military colleagues and David Bailey called and asked for can we see the curriculum what's the consistency and I assured Dr. Bailey that the curriculum exists it's there I couldn't find it I didn't know exactly where it was I couldn't put my hand on it but I asked them to trust me they were training it, people are there they're doing it very smart folks but one reality existed as we went into Iraq and we started pushing the program more into 2004 and we looked at curriculum that was recycled from Bosnia and Kosovo and so forth and a lot of it is cut and pasted and every now and then they'll miss one of the deals and you'll see in Kosovo the one thing that we acknowledged that very early on was pushing that to the side and we are here today with colleagues from state aid, justice that did put it on the line in service to their country as well as alongside our military colleagues but I will say this as we moved that curriculum to the side and did work with as we were doing some of the first management courses in Iraq the one benefit the one thing that we were able to accomplish was at least getting the Iraqi police officials to acknowledge that they owed a debt to their communities that the service that they previously gave was clearly inadequate and not worthy of a true policeman and when we sit with them and we always use the phrase Democratic policing in Iraq we learned and Rick Hatlow will remind you this we started coining a phrase to our Iraqi colleagues that you know what it's easy being a police in a police state you know it's that the challenge of policing in a democracy on and on that is a never ending role in responsibility and it's a key responsibility and one that officers must be held accountable for so but my time here is really to assure you that the state department today has seen that and has acknowledged it and we're the ones that clearly take the beating for anything that has occurred and the movement we have missions that are on the oversight that are funded through DOD and we do have a role that the state will be the one pointing at well by the way state and Dincourt you guys are the ones that messed up on this now when Dincourt ever had the responsibility for running a mission please let me know when that occurs so we can actually step in and stop that but the reality exists the reality exists that we do have a role and we have a responsible and we're all part of this and we're not pointing fingers here but I do find it interesting that it's not necessary but we are a clear partner and a supportive and must be that way hands down in how we do the transition and we are in the process in Iraq today of transitioning the program from DOD to DOS but I like to say it's not DOD to DOS it's from the US government to the government of Iraq because the role is really empowering the host nation and what the democracy looks like who's to say and it's not for us to say that the democracy will vary it'll change a little more but anyway, my goal here to at least to assure you that the concept of developing a significant doctrine is clearly in place that our superiors have clearly come now to us and said that must be in place State Department has to have that role and has clearly looked at creating that in bringing more I'm a law enforcement professional that's where I come from let me thank you for that and to reiterate what I said before which is our profound appreciation for the people who do this work and for the challenges that they face just one small comment Walt obviously is an old friend and besides being a really extremely good fellow with a great sense of humor he's also unique Walt is one of the very very few and there was a time not too long ago when he was the only career law enforcement professional in INL at the State Department you know and this is part of the problem I think what the State Department needs needs more Walt's guys who are career law enforcement professionals with extensive experience in Iraq and Afghanistan and other difficult places we really need to professionalize this work and turn it over to people who know what they're doing and so that's just a point I want to make here before we move on please Marisa Marisa Lino from Northrop Roman a couple of the speakers have touched on the importance of local buy-in and certainly I don't think anybody would disagree with that I think only I'm sorry I can't read it from here the second from the end William Rosenow I think you were the only one who mentioned tribal politics and I would like to ask the question it was sparked by the mention that the locals asked our military to get rid of the police in Marjah I'd like to ask the question because there has been some relative greater success in training Afghan army than in Afghan police for whatever complex reasons whether it's an issue of tribal politics that the police were asked to remove the police in Marjah or whether it was a question of corruption or both and perhaps more broadly looking at Iraq and Afghanistan the issue of how tribal politics comes into play when training police because you can't necessarily put a Shia policeman in a Sunni area or a Pashtun policeman in a Tajik area etc so I haven't heard much on this aspect of the training thank you just a couple of words I'm sure there are people in this audience who know a lot more about Afghan tribal politics than I do but a couple of things I mean with the ANA the Afghan National Army I think it's generally touted as something of a success and I think one of the reasons it has been a success to the extent it has is because of the care and feeding the infinite care and feeding that we devoted to the ANA they lived on the forward operating bases they had plenty of ammunition they were fed, they were housed our forces were embedded with them that's only just beginning to happen with the ANP so there's something to be said for having basically looking at the caliber of our the people who are advising the ANA you know superb marines and army senior NCOs and officers we really gave that it's all we've only just begun to do a similar approach as Mark mentioned it's really only been in the last year where we've taken a similar approach with the ANP as far as the tribal politics in Iraq and policing, I think Bob I'm going to turn the spotlight on you Bob you could probably answer that much better than I can I will say this you talked about beyond the tribal differences ethnic, ethnolinguistic differences and so on which are myriad in Afghanistan this has really been a challenge with policing because you have literally Dari speakers serving in districts in which the vast majority of the population speaks so what do you do about that and one of the arguments is well we need to bring in these outside people there's an advantage to bringing in these outside people because they're just not caught up in the tribal games, they're not caught up in the corruption they're not caught up with this inane feuds and so on but of course the problem is they don't know anything if you were not from that district or sub-district or valley your ability to have that kind of understanding that people who are doing court policing really need to have is extremely remote moreover these outsiders who were brought in and this is I find this deeply depressing these outsiders who were brought in are in turn often corrupted they find themselves after a few months even the Afghan Civil Order police which are again a hand reared free range hand reared force you've seen in a number of districts in Helmand and other places you've seen them corrupted during the focus district development process where they come in and replace the district police for six or eight weeks after a month I've talked to Marine mentors and others who said oh, ANCOP they got corrupted so this inside-outside dynamic in a place like Afghanistan it's really daunting and I don't have a good answer and I'm not sure I'll answer your question could I just give a very very brief one the ANA versus the AMP one of the big differences is the ANA were built from scratch they said we're not dealing with any criteria for entering the ANA that would dissuade many of the former militiamen from entering the police they said we're going to work with existing police which were the militias the northern alliance militias so that's where the problems from the beginning many of them stand so I just wanted to say that just quickly I think the ANA is not regionalized or localized similar to the army so you would have an army force that was brought from a mixture in a different region not so with the police forces who were locally recruited and then locally stationed so guess what locally intimidated, locally murdered locally have families locally not above anything we would face in this country if any law enforcement professionals family was targeted so I think we have to not take a higher ground and look at that I think when we use the term tribal I don't think it's necessarily we need to really look at these as communities and it's again not long we have communities they need security they elect sheriffs those sheriffs get deputies they provide security so I think if we look at it in that construct but there is a overwhelming feedback I've gotten personally is that you it is not acceptable to have a tribal organization turned into a police force that it has to be done anew and that's very you talk about legitimacy I just said communities elect leaders who have security that makes it then illegitimate which doesn't get the right people doesn't have the backing and makes it difficult so it's a corundum between the two thanks Dan I'm Will Embry I spent a long time in the State Department working on post-conflict stabilization reconstruction and my real interest was that transition from soldier military-led security to a civilian-led security and the challenges there obviously the conversation has been pushed by the fierce urgency of now to Afghanistan but it's not just Afghanistan we're worried about I now work for Dinecorp International and I must say it's absolutely fascinating moving from policy making side of the world to being the implementing side of the world I just thought I'd make a comment on what it looks like from the contractor side of the viewpoint in Afghanistan it's really very vulcanized who it is that we are working for as Walter said the contractors do what they're told by the government and in this case I and L is really told by DoD what the policy is the question is do soldiers make good cops and I think the question that every one of you touched on before is are the police in Afghanistan supposed to be little soldiers or are they supposed to be setting up democratic policing well if you're an EMT specialist you come to a a car crash and there's somebody with a broken leg do you set the broken leg or do you just make sure he's breathing first and I think that's DoD's approach in this instead we've got to make sure he survives and therefore any resources we've got to try to help with the counter insurgency is really the place to start from but on the other hand the long term health of the country the legitimacy of the government depends on having real policemen doing the things that David I think laid out has to be done for for the police but let me just step back a minute I did a lot of work with the UN peacekeeping and my question is nobody here's mentioned UN or UN civilian policing today I wondered if you might comment on why you haven't Bob yeah Professor Bailey and I belong to a small group of advisors that the UN has called together to advise them on UN policing in the future of UN police forces we met recently internally and we're about to reconvene again in New York I was asked to chair one of the panels on what they called robust policing and I believe in constabulary Jean Darmery has written a book on the subject and so I very forcefully made a presentation about how the UN should get into this business and there were people turning white around the room the UN really does not see itself as a counter-insurgency force they don't see UN military and police forces engaging in counter-insurgency the UN sees itself as a peacekeeping entity and that means there has to be a peace first keep and so the way the UN is looking at UN policing right now is how to develop a force that can operate in an environment where peace has been established and then you're implementing that peace process I don't know if David would agree well let me have it just add another point I think that the UN confronts exactly the same problem in its peacekeeping of modulating and working together it's the military part and the civilian development and I'll simply say this with respect to police development and training it has no doctrine at all that you can go to a piece of paper and look at it and say this is the way policing is this is our vision of policing and this is the way you train for it it simply doesn't exist and I went from another of those places where I called up like I called up Walt and said tell me how you've been doing training over the past period of time back into the 90s and they were unable to produce it it is complicated even more in the UN case of course because you've got policing traditions from a variety of countries and to homogenize those is one hell of a problem I mean at least in the United States we do know how to do what we call full service policing in the United States and if we can draw on that expertise from state and local agencies we will be well ahead of the game so we don't have a homogenization problem so much in the United States we have a decision about how we're going to use police at all but I think we do know how to do full service policing in a democratic society and the UN is a long way from figuring this out I would just note that there's another entity we haven't mentioned which is the EU which has been particularly active in the area of policing and I think has quite a bit to offer more in some respects than the UN does and Dan they're at the doctor in creation period right now please good morning Gary Barre United States Department of Justice is he tap I'd like to share one or two observations and ask a question of the panel first of all Mr. Rosen now I need to thank you very much for pointing out that police should be training police police practitioners are the best qualified I know that in my opinion a number of situations because of expediency and convenience that the military has been placed in a very awkward position professionals like Colonel Barrett have been asked to train police and they were ill equipped not prepared to do that it'd be akin to asking the average police officer to train military people in small unit tactics or infantry tactics that's not what police do why would the military be able to step up and do that it's not logical the second observation I want to make was Dr. Bailey and Mr. Frito your core concept on curricula I couldn't agree with more as a career law enforcement professional those are things in my opinion that really need to be there in order to have a functional police organization those core basics are an absolute requirement the the situation with attempting to address a problem while you're in a war zone and not putting the fundamentals down not being able to get the people trained in those basics we're trying to, for expediency's sake move a force ahead and I've heard so many times about the curricula being shortened we need to get bodies on the street we need to get the military relieved the military has to move on that's understandable in your book you talk about COSA though those five weeks were the shortened version to meet a number of political demands funding concerns there was a graduation there was a big ceremony everyone came and we finished a five week training program and then we took them right back and put them back in class again there was no way those people were trained and able to take the street and do their job so my question is you make some very good points about how we should fix this what's your prognosis in getting all the people together not only police practitioners but the international community to recognize the needs and be able to come together and to develop a way forward Bob? Thanks very much I have to say for starters that I at least didn't think up these ideas that are in the book on my own I learned them from police practitioners like Gary I was at SETAP as well and Gary and people like him who made their careers in this area are really good teachers and they've seen this stuff in the field and sort of taught it to us so that's the first thing the whole business about how much time you take I just make a point about the situation in Afghanistan the focus district development training program that's our core U.S. training program in Afghanistan was eight weeks it's just been shortened to six weeks the way you get to this 134,000 figure that I talked about earlier is you give actually less training and you do it faster and you produce less qualified people you know, alright so I'll stop and turn this over to somebody else in the panel I think my point and I think I just briefly made it but it's about how do we measure success your point about getting them back in are they capable can they perform in the environment they're placed in very well stated about roles and missions and even ethos of organizations that are involved in this you can't change you might be able to change training structures or curricula but to change the ethos of an organization to do things that it is not believe it is to do that's very hard and by the way that countries organizations change their ethos too from a enforcement of hierarchical power to a community servicing role is very very difficult but I think those are tremendous points and I totally agree with you William? Just a quick point about law enforcement officers and professionals training others training police today is I mean the military they do have military policemen I understand that policing fellow soldiers is very different or marines is different from policing in a civilian context but having spoken to a lot of MP marine MP police trainers I think there's a sense among them anyway that this is going to be a growing mission for them and they seem to get it they seem to get that distinction between civilian policing and military policing to bring a sensitivity and awareness in some circumstances that could be really useful and particularly if the environment is somewhat hot I mean a number of mentors talked about having to sort of switch back and forth between mentoring and sort of security operations or quick reaction not an ideal environment to be doing police mentoring in but one in which we might encounter in the future so I throw that out there it's sort of the MP cadre in the US military if I may I think I should mention Walter made mention of the truck we both got hit by the same curricula truck if I could just say one thing and part of this is a question but I think one of the key things is I absolutely agree that you need to have police professionals doing that training but there also has to be important sensitization of those police professionals to the particular context to which they're going to deploy a necessary received sense of some of that sensitization training so do civilians I'm not sure and I'm opening this question is there that sort of sensitization training for US police officers going into the field to understand the context in Afghanistan and other because or wherever Bosnia team were less than so 14 days okay 14 days I think this is better than nothing this is an extraordinarily important point USIP has started to train mentors who are going out to advise defense ministries we hope to do interior ministries as well but it's an extremely important point these are not normal environments that people are working they need to be prepared for these environments if I just want to say one it's also Bob about the training I wrote a piece in a Canadian newspaper criticizing the reduction of training and I got a note the next day from the NATO training mission who said that they've removed all leave days to make up the two extra weeks I'm going to have to myself duck out to go do something else I'm going to leave you in the able hands of Bob Perrito and we're going to ask the three next questioners we'll take them all at once good morning and try to wrap up my name is Ray Dalmat Loom I dropped five hours to come here and I'm probably the only Iraqi-American here this is how pathetic this being for the last seven years Iraqi-American had been excluded from the entire thing from day one the only thing they can think that they can do is linguists or interpreters I came here because you were one of my students you arrived to Phoenix Academy late February 2008 am I correct? you were slated to start your course on March 1st 2008 no you weren't? no I went earlier I have this schedule and I have your name your major Robert Byrd March 1st 2008 you came at the same time with Colonel Young in any event I worked for a year and a half training mid-teams in Camp Taji and there are obviously there are so many observations that I can literally write a book they were suburb fighters but none of them can sell themselves they're you know they were trained to be robots and training police especially in Iraq and in the Middle East you need to be a good salesman you need more social skills than anything else and letters after letter who was the commandant when you were at Phoenix Academy was it McBride? I was in Afghanistan earlier I didn't go through this recent Phoenix Academy after it stood up I was there before 2004 I was in Iraq in 2006 you touched upon contractors and this is one of the major problems you know tons of letters including the State Department starting in 2003 you know they were bringing some Arab from the Middle East to train them the ATAP problem train them under the ATAP auspices so they can go back to their country to train the Iraqi police on how to fight insurgency and all these recruits all these officers that come to this country these Arab non-Iraqi Arabs are they literally worship Saddam how can you expect them to execute their fight to your responsibility in training Iraqis how to fight Saddam loyalists so the issue of contractors the program manager that we worked under at Phoenix Academy he was a retired officer of the same rank as the commandant and there was literally every single day turf war between the two because he is the one who should run the entire show to the point where the poor commandant had to hide in his office for the entire day and his only basically his only activity this program manager is how to proliferate the contract that's it nothing else so basically the whole thing is just a fiasco where are the Iraqi Americans where are they why don't you guys try to engage them why don't you try you talked about culture I've been writing about the culture issue for years to the State Department I hounded the White House until they invited me in 2006 to meet with President Bush and this is the only time he heard the Iraqi perspective neutral Iraqi perspective and when he understood the dynamics in Iraq when thousands of you guys all spoken nicely dressed bureaucrats failed to really explain to him the dynamics in Iraq it was me who explained to him the dynamics in Iraq and this is what really that was the seed that was planted for the surge eventually so you guys need to engage Iraqi Americans because it is becoming at that time we figured perhaps that that era that's gone, gone, history they intentionally did that so the event escalates so the contracts for political raid with all due respect could I ask you to wrap up thank you very much this is basically what I wanted to say thank you very much please we have two quick questions and then a final question over there and we'll give the panel one last shot good morning everybody I'm Staff Sergeant Earl Bailey United States Marine Corps Reserve I'm also a Maryland State Trooper one thing I've seen is that when we're mentoring the police officers in the foreign country have trouble using discretion they have a lack of a clear understanding of their own law which I myself in Calvert County tomorrow I know I'll have the right whether I make a decision whether I'm a speeding taker or not and the problems that I see within our own is that since there's no guide within our own we only know our own western type of policing so therefore we should have an open mind about understanding the eastern laws how they run their laws are and are they clear on their understanding of law I know the literacy rate in Afghanistan is 90% which is extremely difficult so I'll write from the get go from tracking apprehending bad guys that kind of thing we're at a difficult task and it's everybody's problem that we all need to come together have a good clear understanding they learn their laws they get them trained up and then you deploy them to where they can use their own discretion I think we can get out this awful mess if you know that's a good point please you've been standing the longest thank you kindly my name is Charles Wise I'm the RAC coordinator for the Foreign Service Institute and I'm just back from my last assignment 14 months on the ground in Ambar province as the senior rule of law advisor there I would like to turn this toward a half year note for the ending and say that due to the bravery of our Iraqi colleagues and so many of the different agencies who are at work in Iraq and Afghanistan we have a great success story in Ambar the Marines under RCT-5 and RCT-8 Colonel John Love, Colonel Patrick Millay under the army, Colonel Stammer laid the groundwork for the civilians to come in when I arrived on the ground Colonel Millay turned over all the judge advocates in Ambar to my control he put me in the military chain of command we work closely with especially INL out of Baghdad and the rule of law department Doug Allen Mike Carrasco and I can tell you that we had a total turnaround in the hearts and minds of the people of Ambar we went from a thousand casualties from 2003 to 2008 and that was there 2008 through 2010 we had one casualty and that one casualty was immediately his killers were immediately apprehended within 12 hours by the Iraqi police that we had all trained so what I want to ask the panel is and thank you by the way for the important work that you do in the forum that you give to us rule of law professionals to try to make our profession even better but are you getting any of these nice reports of happy successful reports from the field and is everything always negative thank you thank you we appreciate that I had very positive one more one more and then we'll close we'll close the questions and we'll have the panel respond please go ahead thank you again let me second the comments of the audience I'm Helene Kessler from the office of civilian police and rule of law programs at the department of state in the Bureau of International Narcotics and law enforcement and Bob again thank you for sponsoring this event I've certainly learned a lot but I also just wanted to make a comment in response to your accurate note that we need to professionalize and expand our excellent resources that we already already have I've been given authority to hire more than 40 people for my office in civilian response corps thank you several of you mentioned the need for a quick civilian response we have civilian response corps officers in a number of areas of expertise as well as additional senior police corrections and justice advisors so the assistant secretary in the department of state agree with you and I have a big job ahead of me so thank you thank you that's good news okay the last of the one quick series of responses and then we'll call it a day I appreciate everyone's attention to the issue I think having been in L.A. and Barr and struggle with this what we needed was someone there earlier 2002 3 4 5 and so I literally went looking for that person and couldn't find anyone including going to the green zone so it's there are a lot of people who are doing a lot of things the question is rule law advisor huge capability get those people out to the commanders who are making these resource decisions and provide them that capability because without that and with these professionals advising those commanders they'll make the best decisions they can and help vet and select the best leaders of the local forces who better to determine the best police officer than another police officer when they're dealing with that other leader of that host nation so I'm entirely optimistic but I think we just need to bridge the gap between military resource and civilian have them way earlier even train together even exercise together even deploy routinely together so you have a relationship and maybe that's a recommendation to AID thank you all for it let me make a comment about an idea that surfaced here today very short and that has to do with this use of of not putting all our eggs in the basket of developing a national police and using indigenous structures of both security and adjudication and justice it's a powerful argument and it is and there is wonderful scholarship now and I'm glad to see that I think USIP is going to play a role in this there's wonderful scholarship on the richness of indigenous structures for providing both security and justice all I want to say is well I think this is right that there is huge potential there utilizing these these local auspices however is a political act we are foreigners in those countries and when we begin to choose who has responsibility at local levels apart from the national government for things like security and justice we are meddling in nation building in a huge way and in the history of the development of western nation shows that the location of the authority to police whether it's decentralized as it is here or centralized as it may be in France or decentralized in Brazil etc is hugely consequential so that I think the potential is there working it under international auspices or under our own auspices in some of these places as an end bar which I think is a success story I happen to agree with that and I think there are jirgas for example in Afghanistan which can be used but the decision to do that who do you choose to do these things is not something is put it this way is something that requires a lot of assessment a lot of political sensitivity and isn't just something that you can pluck off the tree as a solution to our frustrations with developing national institutions David Bailey has put it extremely well I think and he makes the point about the essentially political nature of deciding who provides policing services I would argue in a place as I don't know what to apologize for the word as radioactive as Afghanistan particularly southern and eastern Afghanistan even choosing the ANP is a political decision right the relationship between the values of many people in these districts I mean their view of mostly the US but some British military mentors, police mentors in Afghanistan one of the things that really struck me yes they wanted more cultural awareness training but it was less that it was more training on how to be a mentor nobody actually teaches these guys how to go about mentoring and they said well we spent a lot of time on the range and we had a couple of weeks of Dari this is the army but you know nobody taught us how to be mentors and we just had to learn that stuff on the ground I think that's something I might want to reinforce who's ever doing the mentoring needs to be taught how to mentor although a lot of it is going to be natural skills I think people have to be handpicked the other thing I wanted to mention in terms of mentoring some of the marines I spoke to they're actually quite poignant in some districts in Helmand they said the corruption was so bad that it didn't make us physically sick but it made it impossible for us to forge relationships with these people talking about the police the level of depredation was so bad we couldn't form the relationships that we needed to form to be effective mentors maybe that can be addressed in the mentoring training but I think that's something that's going to be a recurring issue thank you I think on that last point on corruption and it brings to bear an important issue which has been mentioned which is of course building up the institutions building up interior ministries human resources department to manage police and ensure of course that they're paid and paid appropriately there is some it's unclear about the evidence whether that would actually reduce corruption but there are some strong indications that would say it would if I could just say something briefly about this idea of using formal traditional structures I also think that you have to be very careful when you're doing this and certainly foreigners external actors have to be in the back seat not the driver's seat in terms of deciding which are legitimate, which should be used and how they should be used I think one of the big criticisms security sector reform in general as a concept tends to discourage the use of traditional mechanisms because of course this is a concept really rooted to fundamental western principles of governance and security on the basis primarily that they violate fundamental human rights in many cases particularly in places like Afghanistan Iraq the rights of women and minority groups and that's true but my experience is looking at this and USIP has highlighted this in many of its work is many that these informal structures and their practices can be reconciled with fundamental western principles and formal structures and a collaborative relationship can be built between the state and these structures now it will depend on the context and the specific institutions or structures but I'm a sperm believer that that's the case but the ownership has to be clearly local actors I just want to say my last point and I just have a very very brief anecdote about the need to contextualize this type of assistance on one of my recent trips to Afghanistan I spent some time at the law and order trust fund for Afghanistan their offices the UNDP services who are running this trust fund and they provide some training to the Afghan police and one of the things they were telling me about one of their training programs which was consistent of a PowerPoint presentation about the UN resolution on gender and peace building now this is a force that's 70 to 90% illiterate and they're receiving a PowerPoint presentation for many several thousand officers I would just have loved to be in the room to see how much that was actually absorbed and this is a lot of money time is being invested in programs such as these we have to understand what are the actual needs what and really attune them to the local context so I think that that is one of the main messages that I think it's simple it's something it's a cliche but it's just not necessarily done okay I want to thank the audience for your patience and for staying with us to invite a round of applause for our panel thank you all for coming we'll be up here if you want to ask individual questions and we'll see you again