The World's Toughest Beat

YURI KOZYREV FOR TIME
KEEPING THE PEACE: Ali Salman Dhahir coordinates a police checkpoint in a crime-laden neighborhood in Baghdad

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It's not as though being a Baghdad cop has ever been easy. When Saddam was in charge, cops often found themselves dangerously exposed. Because power depended on connections with the ruling family, Dhahir and his colleagues unwittingly walked into traps. In May 1997, acting on a court order, Dhahir arrested a man who turned out to be the son of a prominent member of Saddam's ruling Baath Party. Dhahir was arrested in the man's place. He spent 17 days in jail, was demoted and got transferred 300 miles south to the city of Basra. (His arrest, he says, was ordered by then Minister of Interior Muhammad Zimam Abd al-Razaq, who on Feb. 15 was arrested by Iraqi police.)

The challenge of bringing order to Iraq is apparent as Dhahir's team makes the rounds of the capital. On a narrow, unpaved Baghdad alleyway lined with raw sewage, eight of Dhahir's colleagues set out to find two men who allegedly killed a shopkeeper. There's little doubt when they reach the right house. Scrawled in red paint across the length of a mud-brick outer wall is a warning: THIS HOUSE IS WANTED FOR BLOOD. Abdul Aziz Salman, a local grocer, says he painted the message after he watched the two men who live there gun down his brother at his cigarette stall just across the narrow lane. Salman looks on as the officers approach the house. They calmly keep a gathering crowd at bay, then stack up in front of the door and crash through like a well-practiced SWAT team. The house is empty, but police find a cache of stolen machine parts. Though the killers remain free, Salman is impressed. "The police are doing a good job now," he says. An officer on the scene, Lieut. Nasser Hamoud Ali, speaks confidently of tracking down the men. "We will find them," he says, as he loads up a Nissan pickup with the recovered goods. "We know the killers and the people know them, so it will be easy." It may not be easy to maintain such bravado amid the danger that Iraq's police face. But many Baghdad policemen believe things will soon get better. "If they stop the terrorists coming in," says Dhahir, "the police could control the situation inside Iraq."

Until that time, the threats are everywhere. Just four weeks ago, Dhahir narrowly escaped another attempt on his life on his day off. When his driver arrived at his home, Dhahir spotted something dark and rectangular, the size of a brick, on the driver's door. It turned out to be 2 lbs. of plastic explosives wired to a 9-volt battery and stuck to the driver's door with a strong magnet. It would have detonated by remote control or when the car radio was switched on. Dhahir called in two police officers to dismantle the bomb. Why does he keep at his job? "I don't think about the danger," Dhahir says later, back in his police pickup. "If I did, you wouldn't find me sitting here."