By Evan Osnos, Chicago Tribune foreign correspondent
BAGHDAD -- Twenty-eight years old and looking for work, Uday Mohammed would seem the perfect candidate for the new Iraqi police and military forces. The only problem is that he is too afraid to sign up.
“It’s no good because I could be attacked,” he said Saturday at one of Baghdad’s busy markets for day laborers. “It is very dangerous right now.”
The U.S.-led coalition is eager to shift security responsibilities to Iraqi hands, but many men of the age most likely to answer that call say they are deterred by unrelenting insurgent attacks on Iraq ‘s new police and civil defense forces. At least 116 Iraqi security personnel have been killed since May, and three suicide bombings at police stations in the past week killed 26 people and wounded 46 others.
Adding to the death toll among Iraq’s police and military ranks, U.S. troops near the northern city of Kirkuk killed three police officers early Saturday after mistaking them for guerrillas, according to Reuters.
Hoping to stem waves of attrition from the new Iraqi army, the coalition has sharply raised salaries for members of the new force, in some cases as much as doubling their pay, a U.S. military official said Saturday.
Every member of the Iraqi army now receives $60 more each month, which doubles the salary for new recruits and lifts top officers to $240 a month, said Marine Col. Allen Weh, chief of staff of the Coalition Military Assistance Transition Team.
The pay was increased after the first battalion of the Iraqi army lost more than a third of its soldiers--239 of its original 694--since being sworn into duty Oct. 4. The deserters had complained of low pay.
Iraqi soldiers learned of the pay boost last week, after negotiations between coalition officials and the Iraqi Governing Council.
“There was some legitimate discontent before, but things are going a . . . lot better now,” Weh said. “We even had some troops come back who were on leave” and suspected of deserting, he added.
No figures
It is not known how much the attacks have affected the growth of the Iraqi security services.
Coalition spokesman Dan Senor said he does not have current recruitment figures but says that “on the morning after Saddam Hussein ‘s capture was announced, we had a record spike in the number of Iraqis signing up voluntarily to serve in the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps.”
The pay increase for soldiers drew a mixed reception on Baghdad’s streets Saturday, as some Iraqis welcomed the offer of higher pay while others said it would not outweigh the risks.
In the bustling Karada shopping district, 17-year-old shoe shiner Hussein Rahim said he would gladly take the job if his eyesight were good enough. In the New Baghdad neighborhood on the eastern edge of the capital, Ali Rahan, 21, said he knew of 20 people in his neighborhood who recently signed up for the army. He was waiting to see how many dropped out before he made a decision.
“It’s still not enough for me,” said Mohanid Kadoun, 32, who carries boxes at an electronics store. “If I stand next to the Americans and someone shoots at me, who will help me?”
In some areas, discontent has mounted among police officers for several weeks. In the city of Khaldiyah, west of Baghdad, a car bombing last Monday killed 17 Iraqis as police officers were assembling for their morning formation. The attack unleashed a stream of contempt for Americans.
“The Americans come every day and take two of us on patrol, but we hate this,” said Sgt. Abd Halaf Hamed, 30. “They just want us as human shields.”
In other developments, Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar made a surprise trip to Iraq on Saturday to support some of the 1,300 Spanish soldiers serving in the south-central Shiite heartland. Aznar was among President Bush ‘s staunchest allies in the decision to topple Saddam Hussein.
House destroyed
In Samarra, meanwhile, U.S. forces destroyed a house suspected of being used by insurgents to shoot at passing military convoys, The Associated Press reported. And residents in the western town of Rawah near the Syrian border said a large number of U.S. soldiers had entered the town and were searching house to house.
Also, in Najaf, gunmen attacked Damiyah Abbas, a former provincial official of Hussein’s Baath Party, and her 5-year-old son in front of her home Saturday, witnesses said. The boy was killed, and his mother was in critical condition in a hospital, police said.