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Missouri soldiers train Iraqi federal police brigade

Maj. Rick Radford, the federal police transition team's planning and operations officer, stands with three members of the federal police brigade's leadership. (Submitted photo)

By Silas Allen NT@newstribune.com

Published: Sunday, November 29, 2009 8:47 AM CST

RAMADI, Iraq -- A group of 10 Missouri National Guard soldiers is working in Iraq's Al Anbar province to train a group of Iraqi federal police.

The Jefferson City-based Federal Police Transition Team is partnered with the Abu Risha Federal Police Brigade. The police brigade is headquartered in the city of Ramadi, which is the capital of the Al Anbar Province.

The unit's primary function is to train the police brigade on military-style staff operations, said Maj. Rick Radford, the unit's planning and operations officer. The team assists the police brigade in planning and carrying out missions, ensuring that each department is functioning correctly and that all the departments are working well together.

"The real benefit we've been able to hand to the Iraqis is the concept of collaboration, staffing and a military decisionmaking process from a staff perspective," Radford said.

The style of staff organization often comes as second nature to the soldiers, Radford said, but that familiarity has come only after years of exposure. The team makes sure to account for the fact that the police brigade is less familiar with the system of organization, he said.

"We must remember that the Iraqis are new to working an organization that we in America have been building and utilizing for decades," he said.

The team's current mission represents a change from the mission it was given when it deployed. The team arrived in the Salah ad Din province in early August. At the time, the unit was designated as a military transition team, meaning their mission was to assist the Iraqi army in the areas of intelligence, communications, fire support, logistics and infantry tactics.

Shortly after arriving, the team was notified it would be training the police brigade instead.

Radford said the team's mission has remained basically the same, even if the details have changed: the soldiers are providing the same training as they would have been had they never been reassigned. They are simply providing that training to a different group.

"I do not see hardly any deviation from what our initial mission was, but rather, just a change in venue and the audience," Radford said. "It is as if a teacher were to teach math in St. Louis versus Kansas City. The general concepts are the same."

Radford said the Iraqi people have been kind, but it is apparent the Iraqi authorities are ready to take up the mission themselves. As the mission in Iraq draws to a close, he said, there is less and less that coalition forces are able to do for Iraqi authorities, since they simply need less and less guidance.

"That is not to say that Iraq will perform perfectly, because there will be shortfalls," Radford added. "However, the Iraqi people are ready for those and want to begin to build Iraq for themselves."


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