More Iraqis accept their US-trained forces

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 forceshas 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.

US officers issued orders for the Iraqis to be on heightened alert since the Abu Ghraib prison photographs surfaced, but so far there appears to have been little retribution aimed at Iraqi forces.

"Now the people are beginning to understand that [Iraqi forces] are serving the country; before they thought they were all agents serving the Americans," says Shakir Jafar Jassim, a member of the local district council who has been recommended by a local US Army unit to serve as an FPS captain.

One event that has helped change the dynamic was the insurgent fighting that rocked Fallujah throughout April, followed by the introduction of joint Iraqi and US force patrols there - part of the US military's attempt to broker a solution.

"The reaction of people changed when [Iraqi forces] went to Fallujah, and were asked by Fallujans to protect them there," says Mr. Jassim. "Most attacks and car bombs came from Fallujah. But when [Iraqi forces] went to Fallujah, they realized they were there for them, not just for Americans."

A US Marine convoy made a test run through Fallujah Monday, the first of its kind since the weeks-long siege was dismantled 10 days ago. Not a shot was fired; US top brass Maj. Gen. James Mattis, commander of the First Marine Division, met with the mayor.

Members of that Fallujah force say that attitudes are softening even in their backwater city 30 miles west of Baghdad, where residents supported Saddam Hussein, and where numerous Baath Party officials and former intelligence agents have sought sanctuary since the fall of the regime.

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