Reads more like resignation than acceptance to me
More Iraqis accept their US-trained forces
By Scott Peterson
BAGHDAD - Accused of being collaborators with American occupation forces, Iraqi policemen, guards, and soldiers have endured ridicule, threats, and targeted violence that have left hundreds dead over the past year.
But there are signs that hard-nosed attitudes toward the country's embattled, US-trained security forces are beginning to soften.
There is no way to tell the breadth of this apparent change in popular thinking. But some dozen security personnel in Baghdad and the flash point of Fallujah report that the views of their fellow Iraqis - tired of the continual burn of insecurity, car bombs, and kidnappings - are shifting.
"It is beginning to change," says Emad Abbas Qassem, a lieutenant in the Facility Protection Service (FPS), at his post outside a central Baghdad education ministry office. "It's not only the people, but my wife, my family and brothers tell me: 'Go to work and do your duty.' They used to be so afraid."
Indeed, the number of targeted attacks and casualties against security forces has dropped in recent weeks, relative to previous months. At least 350 Iraqi police were killed in the first year of occupation; that rate dropped dramatically to roughly a dozen killed during April. Lieutenant Qassem estimates a 50 percent drop in the past month alone. "Because we were trained by the Americans, [Iraqis] dealt with us like we were Americans," he says.
