We spoke with USAF Major Joseph Musacchia, deputy director of the Rule of Law Directorate for the Iraq Training and Advising Mission. The transcript is here. MAJ Musacchia is working with the Iraqi Police (IP) version of an internal affairs court, which is similar in some ways to a UCMJ court in that it treats the law that governs the IP, not the law that governs the society at large. Of the three branches of the Iraqi Security Forces -- the military, the "national police" and the Iraqi police -- the IPs have normally been the least reliable and the most subject to partisan infiltration. The Major asserts that the court has issued two thousand sentences against corrupt officials in the twenty months since it came into force. We questioned him closely about the mechanisms used to avoid false convictions, so that partisan actors in the IP structure couldn't use it to conduct purges against their political or tribal enemies. Finally, I asked him if he was willing to give his personal assurance that he had a high degree of confidence that this court was operating in a fair and equitable manner. MAJ. MUSACCHIA: I can say, in my personal opinion, what I have witnessed, the statistics that I have analyzed and the training that I have personally observed, I believe that it is in fact a very fair and impartial discipline and criminal-justice system for the MOI. And I say that with my 14 years of law- enforcement experience and over eight years of academic training in criminology and criminal justice. You may wish to read the entire interview, for insights into how this was achieved.
Read the complete post at http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Blackfive/~3/j7QGUvbK6ro/roundtable-the-court-that-tries-iraqi-police.html
Posted
Jan 11 2010, 10:09 AM
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