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Italy Prepares Iraqi Police To Protect Country's Oil

Maj. Gen. Claudio Angelelli addresses oil police recruits after their first  run-through exercise to clear a building of hostage-takers. Angelelli is the  commander of the Italian Carabinieri unit in Iraq that is training the oil  police.
Courtesy of NATO Training Mission in Iraq
Maj. Gen. Claudio Angelelli addresses oil police recruits after their first run-through exercise to clear a building of hostage-takers. Angelelli is the commander of the Italian Carabinieri unit in Iraq that is training the oil police.

For years, Iraq's oil infrastructure — its pipelines and refineries-- has been a regular target of the armed insurgency.

Attackers detonated bombs in one refinery in February, and explosions breached the pipeline carrying oil from northern Iraq to Turkey in March.

In response, Iraq has created a police force with the special mission of protecting oil and gas facilities. The center for training the Iraqi oil police is known as Camp Dublin: It's a small corner of the American and Iraqi bases around Baghdad's airport.

About 50 Italian Carabinieri, Italy's national police, are teaching classes to recruits about modern policing techniques. The subjects include topography, desert and urban patrolling, smuggling, and oil infrastructure, among many others.

The goal is to train as many police as possible and prepare some to be trainers themselves.

Dramatically Different Techniques

Recently, about a dozen Iraqi recruits were beginning to put what they are learning into practice — going through the methodical steps used to clear a building of gunmen who have taken hostages.

Gianluca Bianchini, a paratrooper in the Carabinieri back in Italy, explains the plan of attack.

This is a very tough duty, but one of the most important duty for the Iraqi police forces. Because as you know, oil is the unique source for the Iraqi people.

"As you can see, they're approaching the main entrance of the building," Bianchini says. "The first two will use the ballistic shield."

This was the first time in the field for these recruits. The techniques they are being taught differ dramatically from those that Iraqi security forces have used in the past, says Col. Fausto Vignola, commander of the Carabinieri training division.

"The starting point is a military approach to the problem, but in the end we want to reach a police approach to the problem," Vignola says. "It means to catch these people, to stop the situation using the minimum force needed."

Right now the oil police are about 25,000 strong, but that's clearly not enough to defend all of Iraq's vulnerable oil facilities, including 4,300 miles of oil and gas pipeline. Recently the force's commander said the oil police need about 12,000 additional troops. The police continue to receive intelligence that the facilities are a prime target of al-Qaida in Iraq.

Maj. Gen. Claudio Angelelli, who commands the NATO training mission in Iraq, which includes the Carabinieri's activities, is also concerned.

"They need to increase the figure because until now they are supported by the army. But in the future, this is a specialized task for the oil police so they have to increase the figure to be able to control all the oil infrastructure," he says.

This is new work for the Carabinieri. There is no such thing as oil police in Italy. But the Carabinieri have been training regular Iraqi police for several years, putting nearly 10,000 recruits through basic police training. So Iraq's government asked Italy to take on this specialized task, Vignola says.

"Any police organization have a part of activity related to the protection of sensitive objectives," he says. "I think that this is an important part of training."

A Tough, But Important Duty

The training course lasts for six weeks. It includes exercises in the field coupled with classroom lectures. This classroom was filled with about 250 trainees.

Maj. Gen. Claudio Angelelli addresses a classroom of Iraqi oil police trainees.
/ Courtesy of NATO Training Mission in Iraq
/
Courtesy of NATO Training Mission in Iraq
Maj. Gen. Claudio Angelelli addresses a classroom of Iraqi oil police trainees.

The Iraqi officers in charge of the oil police seemed genuinely impressed with the new kind of police training they are getting. Maj. Shamil Hassan commands the oil police recruits while they go through the course.

"We didn't get used to a lot of training during Saddam, I mean the old regime," he says. "But now we can see a lot of improvement. If you compare now the time now and before, there is no such compare between them because really we improve our skill and we improve our professionalism."

Professionalism is especially important because the government believes Iraq will eventually produce far more oil. Right now it is pumping about 2.2 million barrels a day, the highest output since the American invasion.

Some oil experts believe that figure could double in the coming years, but that will need many miles of new pipeline. Iraq is also considering building new refineries over the next five years that could make it an exporter of petroleum products, not just crude oil.

So it's especially important now, Angelelli says, to get the current crop of oil police off to a modern start.

"This is a very tough duty, but one of the most important duty for the Iraqi police forces," he says. "Because as you know, the oil is the unique source for the Iraqi peoples."

Iraq also continues to lose revenue to smugglers who steal oil from the pipelines. That's just one other task the Iraqi oil police must take on.

Copyright 2020 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Mike Shuster is an award-winning diplomatic correspondent and roving foreign correspondent for NPR News. He is based at NPR West, in Culver City, CA. When not traveling outside the U.S., Shuster covers issues of nuclear non-proliferation and weapons of mass destruction, terrorism, and the Pacific Rim.