Baghdad - Bomb attacks in Baghdad have hit an all-time 
high, the US military said on Wednesday, as one of the capital's frontline 
police units was pulled off the streets on suspicion of involvement with 
sectarian death squads. 
 
 
   Residents walk away from the scene of a car 
 bomb attack which targeted the convoy of Iraq's Industry Minister Fawzi 
 al-Hariri in Baghdad, October 4, 2006. 
[Reuters] | 
 
 
 
Thousands of police face criminal vetting and lie detectors as part of a 
"retraining" process designed to weed out militia killers who have used the 
cover of their uniforms to kidnap, torture and commit mass murder, US officials 
have said. 
The overnight orders to move the 8th National Police Brigade into barracks 
and arrest one of its commanders came a day after Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki 
unveiled a sketchy deal with Sunni leaders and fellow Shi'ites to try to stem 
violence. But there was still no sign of further talks to provide substance. 
US military spokesman Major General William Caldwell said the number of car 
bombs in Baghdad, both detonated and defused, hit their highest level of the 
year last week and that bombs reported in general were "also at an all-time 
high." 
US and Iraqi forces have mounted a major military operation in the past two 
months against militants in Baghdad. 
For the second time in two days, four US soldiers were killed in a single 
incident around Baghdad, this time in what appears to have been a substantial 
skirmish involving mortars or rockets and gunfire to the northwest. It took the 
death toll in four days of the month to 15 around Baghdad and 22 in total. 
Caldwell described it as a "hard week" for US forces, who typically suffer 
two to three deaths a day on average in Iraq. 
Fourteen people were killed and 75 wounded when a car bomb struck a 
government motorcade in Baghdad. Police said the industry minister, a Kurd, was 
in the motorcade but aides said no senior officials were in the convoy. 
The blast in the Christian Karrada commercial area damaged buildings and left 
blood and mangled cars in the street. 
Death Squads 
Under pressure before congressional elections next month from voters keen for 
an exit strategy from Iraq, US President Bush has made the training of 
Iraqi security forces the focus of hopes to start withdrawing 140,000 US troops. 
The same sectarian divisions driving hundreds of killings a week in the 
capital are also present among the 300,000 Iraqi soldiers and especially the 
police, US officials say. 
"There is clear evidence that there was some complicity in allowing death 
squad elements to move freely," Caldwell said of the decision to stand down the 
8th Brigade, some 700 to 800 men, after US officers reviewed all 27 brigades 
last month. 
"The determination was made that removing them from Baghdad will be in fact 
enhancing the overall security," he said. 
Leaders of the once dominant Sunni Arab minority view parts of the largely 
Shi'ite national police force, built up last year to help fight Sunni 
insurgents, as fronts for Shi'ite militias. 
"The individuals ... had not in fact put their full allegiance and commitment 
behind the government in Iraq and instead had maintained it to some other 
elements outside of the national police," Caldwell said. 
All police brigades will be retrained over the coming year. 
One US military official described some national police last week as 
"absolute ... remnants of humanity" while another, conceding the US role in 
recruiting them, said he found it "frightening" meeting some of the men drafted 
in from mainly Shi'ite communities to help protect January 2005 elections. 
At that time, the main threat was seen as coming from Sunnis loyal to al 
Qaeda and Saddam Hussein. Now killing by all factions pressing their own 
interests is tearing Iraq apart. 
An Interior Ministry spokesman said the 8th Brigade commander arrested on 
Tuesday was accused of negligence and failing to report the kidnap of 26 meat 
factory workers in southern Baghdad on Sunday. At least 10 have been found dead. 
North of Baghdad, in violent Diyala province, an Iraqi army colonel said US 
troops arrested 10 Iraqi soldiers suspected of sectarian killings. There was no 
immediate US comment. 
US and Iraqi officials admit privately to doubts about the sectarian and 
ethnic cohesion of the Iraqi security forces if conflict slides toward all-out 
civil war for oil and territory.