The side of policing the public dont see

Before I came out to Iraq I spent a year teaching at a Further Education College on a Public Services Course, the aim of the course was to prepare students for careers in the Military and Emergency Services, all the lecturers had to have had public service back grounds, on the whole it worked very well, however the person over seeing this knew sod all about the course or the organisations and was in fact a peace activist.

Just before the Coalition entered Iraq in 2003, there was talk of WMD, she got so upset that we advised her to stock up just in case, she then went out and stocked up her house with emergency supplies, we even put a Military Ration pack in her post tray for her, she fell for it…..

Any way at this college was the college bike, one of the other lectures was shagging one of our team, the bike was jealous of the rapport I had with the students. After I left the “County” force I stayed on the social committee of the bar at the nick, they asked me to remain on it after I left the force, a couple of the students who were of legal age came to the bar as well as many of them wanted to join the police. Anyway the college bike who by now had moved on to a police officer who was also working with the course made an allegation that I was a BNP supporter, the basis for this allegation was a module I was teaching, we looked at the 3 main parties and some of the smaller ones and examined how if in power they would effect the working of the public services. When we looked at the BNP (British Nation Party), I said that I can see how they (BNP) are playing on peoples concerns and gaining power. The bike made a written statement to the County Force, by now I had moved on to the other force and thus acquired a higher level of security clearance, now the Chocolate Fireguard Area Commander I mentioned earlier accepted this allegation, despite Special Branch saying they had no record of my alleged involvement, plus the fact I had worked with them before, so without even talking to me the Area Commander accepted all this, kicked me off the committee. When he invited to in finally to chat he said that as long as I did not attempt to find out who made the allegation he would not contact my new force, what a complete liar he turned out to be as he did just that, mind you the new forces actualy had the brains to dismiss the allergation as malicious.

Now about me, I am mixed race, My mother is half Serbian/ English, my father Half Maltese/Indian, my sister is half English/African, we are all born and Bred in England, and according to the BNP manifesto anyone who isn’t native born ( can trace their ancestors back a few generations) should be deported, whilst I was also in the county force I also worked with the Black Police Association. I paid my taxes to keep these type of people in their jobs.

Now during my time in the county force I had some really good times and some bad, I was the only Special Constable (volunteer) who had the competency to not only arrest people, but interview, charge and put before the court, something my all singing all dancing Area Officer and County Commandant couldn’t do, I had such a close working relationship with one team they put my name on the duties board as part of their shirt, even had my own cup with my call sign on. One particular Friday night, the big bosses had allowed the staff to get so bad that the shift that covered the town centre area of the division with all the pubs and clubs, consisted of one tutor, two probationer constables who had not long been independent and myself, in fact that was the shift on nights for quite a few weeks.

The backward side of policing in the UK

The first week of Jan was pretty hectic this year, on New Years Eve, the Jundie being such a well disciplined military organisation break the glass in the door to the dining hall after rattling the door because they dont want to wait for the dining room to be opened, then on new years day a fight breaks out and one of the Iraqi MP's (that’s a joke in its self) decided to fire an AK47 in the air to instil order, instead makes all the civilian staff panic, call goes out over the net shots fired, net result, every US Military person on site turns up in full battle year, Humvees mounted with 50 Cal machine gun expecting a mutiny.

Then we have the booze black market, some Iraqi's try and smuggle 70 bottles of scotch on the base.

To take my mind off of the constant shagging between the Iraqis, Soldiers and Officers, the stealing, piles of shit everywhere, I go onto the forum, when I first joined ps.com he was a good place to be, exchange ideas about policing, experiences and chat to different people, now however the Political Correct Wind that is prevailing over the UK has infested the site, most of the mods strictly enforce a politically correct left wing agenda, they bully and ridicule anyone who dares to think differently, they put one person on moderated posts indefinitely, when challenged about this atmosphere the site host says "Its my forum, I can run it how I like", despite receiving £100's in subscription fees, they make personal digs at people, spin comments out of context to make people appear in a negative light and these are the people who uphold the law.

There was a thread on there about Avon & Somerset Police, in an effort to make their force more representative and to meet quota's the Government have set, they deliberately deselected several white male candidates from joining the police force, having researched this I said that it was illegal, all the hippy liberals said they were doing nothing wrong and just trying to rectify a wrong, either these people are completely stupid or just arguing with me because its me, but they refused to accept they were wrong, even after the views of the CRE were published. Low and behold the force eventually admitted they acted illegally and made an out of court settlement, all those who were screaming and shouting how wonderful the idea was all shut up and crept back under their stone, one person even had the nerve to say that the 2 year probation period for regular police officers should be curt for minority recruits and they should be given preferential treatment when applying to specialist posts of those who may be more qualified as there isn’t enough minority recruits in specials posts.

This type of behaviour has now became indicative of the police service in the UK, rather than good old fashioned values of fairness, integrity and common sense, you get s small minority of people, often white middle class, enforcing their values on everyone else.

Nearly had a heart attack couple of days ago nearly had a haert attack, I was racing across a bridge that snipers like to hit targets on, as I crossed teh first bridge all of a sudden saw a bloke standing in the middle of the road waving a white flag, nearly caked myself, then on another occasion told it was ok to cross the bridge when the two humvees infront of me opened fire.

Well whenever I go on leave I always manage to get screwed over by the company, always get to fly "Royal" Jordanian Airlines, one time I got on the plane, sat in my seat and the whole thing fell backwards, then when I moved to another seat (very rare for the plane to be full) the seat had been fixed with some duct tape and again the two volume in flight entertainment, wasn’t to bad last time, I managed to convince my boss to fly me BA, I was not in the mood for RJ.

We had a had a real crappy spell on camp, we get BBC World News piped into our office so we see the news, but you never hear how often our camp gets hit, at one time we would be attacked daily, one day we had 22 separate strikes in one day, I am part of the joint response team on base that deals with medical emergencies so every time the camp get hit we all have to make our way to the site hospital to wait for the casualties, it was during this period in Ramadan that I had the worse day of my time out here, a mortar landed just outside the door to one of the Iraqi barracks sending shrapnel inside the building, we did our best for them, but the guy I was working was to badly injured and died whilst I was treating him, when I got back to the office with blood still on my trousers, I wanted to kill my boss, he was one of those Walter Mitty types who always wants to be involved or know everything from a distance, he used to get excited wanting to know the details, I walked in and he bombarded me with questions, I told him that I didn’t want to talk about it as the guy I was treating just died, he went all pissy saying he was only asking, I went outside to use have a cigerett (dont call them fags anymore after an incident in a Hajji shop in Baghdad, I was surrounded by American soldiers and said to my mate "God I am gagging for a fag", ,que all the Americans nearly pissing themselves laughing and I nearly die of embarrassment), when I was sitting outside the office the boss came out and asked "Are you going t cope, are you going to have a nervous breakdown", I really dont know how I kept my temper.

Mortars continued to come in daily and the Jundie are so think they carry on playing football during the attacks. I can honestly say I have never met such an ungrateful bunch of people in my entire life, the US for example have spent so much money in Iraq that you could give each man, woman or child $10,000 EACH. The steal anything they can get their hands on to sell, then come back demanding that whatever was stolen is replaced.

So show what a bunch of dirty gits they are, despite there being huge 5.5 cubic meter skips near all the accommodation, they insist on setting trash piles alight then walk off and leave it, my record so far is 44 fires in one day, when the Iraqi commanders were challenged about the lack of discipline they actually said it was ghosts who set the fires.

After Ramadan the insurgents decided to concentrate on IED (Improvised Explosive Devices), next to our camp is a couple of towns, one day a convoy got hit three times, the insurgents always delay the detonation so that whilst the soldiers are putting the fires out from the first, the second goes off, then the third, one day I was asked by the XO to take the fire crew under military escort to douse a Humvee as there was body parts in it that needed to be recovered, they towed it nearer to the camp, after the perimeter was secured we doused it, the engine block was so hot the vehicle was enveloped in steam and the body parts became steam cooked, I nearly puked my guts up, took about 3 days before I could stop smelling it, whilst we were hosing the vehicle a fire fight started around us. Walter Mitty got all pissy with me again, he wanted to go out with the fire crew, but didn’t think he needed ballistic vest/helmet, got all pissy with me when I said no, XO was impressed and told him to piss off, the boss ignored me for about 2 days, god it was great.

Me being the diplomat that I am have had a few disagreements with little Hitler’s over here, on such occasions, I was given permission from a colonel to go through a particular checkpoint on one of the American Camps, this permission was negotiated by my XO and the Colonel, I get to the check point and little Hitler wont let me through, I explain what the situation is and he replies "I dont care what rank the person is, no one told me, I am in charge here and you are going to wait until I say you can go", I ask for his name and service number so that I can report it to the base commander, few days later he doesn’t speak to me as I cross the checkpoint, he had been "spoken" to.

Next time I was escorting some trucks from one base to another, the normal route from the search area was conned off, so I asked the marines which way I should go, then when I do an old geriatric Sgt gets all pissy, when I try and explain what had happened he just kept repeating the fact that I wasn’t allowed to go the way I did. Me being me, I immediately find his boss and ask them to put their heads together and make a decision, I explain what had happened, the Sgts boss apologised and said that they send him outside because he is such a dick. When the Sgt comes in he says it for a third time that the route I took is wrong, then one of the marines interrupts after asking me how much alcohol is in the UK and what the women are like, tells the Sgt the normal route was blocked off, not wanting to miss a dig I reply "Which is exactly what I was trying to tell you if you had listened, after all we are supposed to be on the same side", the rest of the marines start to snigger and the Sgt stomps off.

Pastures new

During my time down South I was also based at a large transit camp for truck drivers, it was certainly interesting, despite the US Military having no frat rules there was rampant humping going on, there were a few pregnancies and quite a few guys with droopy dick. It even got to the point that the medic and I had to start giving out condoms when we caught a group of truck drivers banging away in the DVD room, I had a night mare trying to justify to my boss why I was requesting a gross of condoms.

Got to go on leave via Kuwait, went for a meal in a nice restaurant, weird thing is you cant drink alcohol or dance in Kuwait, but up stairs in the restaurant they had a disco for a load of people in their late teens, must have been real fun. Got to fly KLM home so was pretty good.

Met up with a few mates back home in Blighty then got transferred to a camp in the middle of the Sunni Triangle as punishment.

Still had some entertainment from ps.com, always good for a laugh was Boromir, he not only had a rose tinted glasses on but think has rose tinted eye balls. Well I got to my new camp which was an old RAF base during the Second World War, got my own room which was pretty good so I could watch DVD's and just chill out. It was here that I cam to realise what a complete and utter waste of space a large part of the Iraqi Army is, in all the years of involvement with Military/police I have never met such an unprofessional organisations, at this camp the Jundie do one of 4 things, steal everything that isn’t bolted down, vandalise it if it is bolted down, shit everywhere including in the corner of their bedrooms and the worse of all screw each others brains out, they are not even discreet about it, I have lost count of the amount of times we have caught them, there were 4 of them banging away in the doorway on one of the main roads, then there were two whacking off in the shower, it got so bad none of us in our team would go anyway unless we were in pairs as we kept getting proposition.

Just before I arrived the XO of the camp a Captain in the USMC was having a shower, one of the Iraqi Officers walked in after being on leave, stripped to have a shower ( a rarity for Iraqi Soldiers), he noticed the Captain and walked up and hugged him saying "Hello My friend", just at that point one of the young American Lieutenants walked in, saw what was happening, turned round laughing and told everyone, the Captain had to put up with jokes the rest of his time on base.

When I arrived I found out I was the only Brit, apart from the obvious Iraqi's, there were also Americans, Indian, Pakistani, Sierra Leon and loads of South Africans.

The new XO had an excellent sense of humour, so we started a US-V-UK banter, to start with he thought I was innocent, but he made a couple of comments, so I managed to "acquire" a picture with his face on, so I got a mate to put his face on a few embarrassing pictures, I put the poster up and around the military compound, he nearly died laughing, everyone got the blame except me, then e found out.

Despite there being large 5.5 cubic meter rubbish skips next to their barracks they Jundie insist on dumping their rubbish at spots around the camp. In the end the only safe way of disposing of the rubbish was to set fire to it, so we doused it with fuel then set it alight, only problem was some thick twat left a AK47 magazine in the rubbish, then there was an almighty bang, the Captain and I almost needed a change of shorts.

Mean while back home the forum became more and more of a white wash, they don’t understand that their comments and actions reflects on the whole service, the in crowd treat anyone who has the guts to have an individual opinion with disdain and what is tantamount to bullying just because people have the conviction to have a thought other than the official one spoon fed to them by the PR department.

The forum is such a friendly environment that the moderators have a private area were they discuss members who have no access to the data, then compile dossiers on people and forward them to people forces, hardly an action that upholds the principles of the code of conduct, if anyone dares to even hint that a moderator may be wrong they get jumped on and told “its my sight I run it how I like”

The people on there are so stupid they make facetious comments hinting that I made up the whole thing about working in Iraq.

During all this time I had the pleasure of running convoys between two camps in the most delightful area of Iraq.

Met a couple of little Hitler’s on the camp, little NCO’s in the US Military who think they have allot of power, I always like to give them enough rope to hand themselves, then pull the chair out from under them.

Going darn sarf

Until recently I had the utmost respect for the RAF, not any more, I flew down from Baghdad to Basra, after I got my stomach off the ceiling of the C130 I found out that the take off was poorly to see how many passengers would be sick.

I am enjoying it down South, I will now be working with the British Military, I have put up some new pics in the gallery of my apartment in Kuwait City were I am staying with a nice lady called with ten same surname as me from South Africa.

Well the camps down Sarf are a great deal better than the ones up North, there’s no Iraqi Soldiers here, there is a definite difference in the working practices of both the US and UK Military, to the extent that British Military Convoys are not allowed to overtake US Military Convoys as the Americans think its funny to point their 50 Cal machine guns at the British Soldiers or throw stones at them.

I was visiting one US Base down south, they stopped an Australian Military Convoy and made every soldier show them their ID, they even made the gunner get out to show them their id, I can really understand why the US Military have such a bad reputation, especially after incidents were they forced one old man off ten road driving his small bongo with all his produce on when he was going to market, due to ten road conditions the old man couldn’t have gone anywhere, but the American convoy forced him off the road and his truck rolled onto its back destroying the produce which he was taking to market to earn money for his family. The head of the Private Security detail that would transport me around was American, and ex Special Forces, but didn’t have good thing to say about the US Military in Iraq, in the bar we gave him a certificate and made him an Honary member of the British Empire.

Whilst I was down in Southern Iraq I also went to the Temple and ruins at Ur, the birth place of Abraham, walked up the top of the temple and nearly dies, the view was spectacular though.

One thing that surprised me, at one camp, that also happened to have a bar, got chatting with one of the guys from the Royal Navy, turned out not only was he from the same town as me but his dad was also a police officer at the same station as me.

Although the camp was pretty small and there wasn’t much for me to do, I always had to stay the night, me along with the Royal Marines and Royal Navy had to educate the Civilian Site Manager from South Africa the British Military tradition of bar games and bar rule, poor guy got so drunk and having a hangover when its 52 degrees Centigrade is not a good thing, went out on one of the FAB’s it was excellent got to see the Iranian coast.

My eyes are opened even more

Well life was pretty interesting at my first camp, I really got the grasp with the fact that the Iraqi soldiers have no comprehension of what an effective military unit is, I then got sent up to Tikrit, joy of joys got to go by road, only problem is driving in full ballistic armour in an un air-conditioned vehicle is a real bitch, especially as it was shortly after the insurgents got their hands on a load of Iraqi Police Uniforms and set up a false roadblock and opened up fire on a passing security convoy.

After getting ditched at the base at Tikrit, did my thing, then when I contacted my boss to see about transport back to Baghdad got ignored for a few days then when I contacted his boss, got told by mine that I must remember that I am in Iraq and not London and that security are not a taxi service, gee I would never have guessed.

The sun is great during the day, but there are small sand storms in the evening, am still waiting to hear when I am going back to my own Camp.

One thing I have come to realize since being out here, and before people get on their Anti Iraqi war soap box, this was happening long before the Coalition came here, is the squalor that some of these people live in, at the Camp I am based at one of the workers was Tortured by Saddam's regime because he did not want to join the Army, he still has the visible scares. Does he go on about it no, he is one of the hardest workers I know and every morning he greets me with a smile when I see him.

When I am working with people like that it makes some of the arguments that go on the forum (www.policespecials.com) and in general back home seem quite pathetic really.

I was well aware of the type of things that I would be exposed to coming out here, but seeing it face to face gives you a whole new perspective on life and make some of the issues we have back home seem petty.

I know there are many people who are against Britain sending troops here or the whole Second Iraq War, but folks reality check, it is easy to make comment when you are sitting in a nice and safe house, with heating, plumbing and running water and a kitchen full of food. Many of the bases over here have used existing Military Bases and the Palaces Saddam had, the difference in the accommodation and luxury is astounding, I don’t seem to see the Anti War Campaigners showing what life was like before Saddam was toppled or tell you about things the brave people were subjected to.

I fully respect their right to believe in what they want, but next time they start condemning the Military or Governments they should do some research.

We all know the Intelligence used by both HMG and USG to justify the war with regards to WMD was erroneous, we needed to do it, we were just told the wrong reasons.

Well last night was the last BBQ or Briar as the South Africans say, at this Camp, spent the early part of the night arguing over who had the best rugby team.

Got steamed out of my head and started talking to some Hungarians soldiers who had been invited to the BBQ. Had a great laugh.

Worse things was getting woken up by the Air Raid Siren because of incoming Morta's, god did my head hurt.

Yesterday reached 43C today its about 45. During the summer it gets around 50 at some times.

Off to Sunny Iaq

Well after having god knows how many blood tests managed to get my medical results through, the company I was going to work for even wanted a test to show I wasn’t suffering from Anthrax, when I asked the Doctor for it they laughed, saying if you had it you would be dead.

Finally got to Heathrow and got my tickets for Royal Jordanian Airlines, the royal in their name bares no resemblance to the quality of service, the interior of the cabins looks like a tacky 60's room, the chairs are broken and the ear phones have two volumes full or off, I finally got to Amman and signed an open ended contract.


It was quite entertaining sitting at the gate in Amman Airport, you could tell all the American security, talking about how they carry spare parts for their weapons and can strip and replace a defective part under fire in less than 2 minutes, are these people for real.....

I got to Baghdad and got conned out of $10 Visa by the sodding Iraqi, not a good start, from there got sent to my first posting, the Iraqi Equivalent of RMA Sandhurst, what a joke. I saw a British PTI taking some Jundie (Iraqi Soldiers) for a run, thought the veins in the poor soldiers neck was going to burst.

In its day the camp was pretty good, in my time in the police I had gone into some real crappy houses, the type were you wipe your feet before you leave, but nothing prepared me for the site of how Iraqi soldiers live.

Now in the Police I had seen a fair amount of weird stuff, one night I was leading a Public Order van when I saw a pair of legs sticking out from under a bush, when we pulled up I saw a guy sitting on the floor with his trousers around his ankles with a bird riding him, my mate turned on the blue strobes and sirens, poor guy nearly shit himself, I thought that was funny, but nothing would have prepared me for the site of a group of Iraqi soldiers screwing each others brains out in the middle of the barracks, what’s worse they invited me to join them, "Hey Mister, you fiki fiki", I nearly had car accident as I drove off so quickly back to the safety of my room.

Throughout all this had a steady stream of entertainment from a police website forum I joined when I was still in the police, www.policespecials.com there are some real anal retentive gimps on there, just before I left for Iraq there was a "social", it didn’t turn out to be very social, by this point a few of them knew I was coming out to Iraq, so the majority of the people there including some of the esteemed all singing all dancing knows everything about the police moderators also completely ignored me, still managed to get pissed with some mates though.

Not long after arriving at the Camp I had to get my Military ID card, got all the paperwork sorted, took my passport and went to BIAP (Baghdad International AirPort) were there is the main base. The road leading into the airport is one of the most heavily attacked in Iraq, it was there we met Major Secret Service as we named him, a true example of what is bad about the US Military and the reason they have a bad reputation, he was a USMC Major, he decided to get in an argument with out Private Security Detail, at the first Checkpoint surrounded by Iraqi’s who hadn’t been checked or searched he decided to shout “I know more about security than you micky mouse outfits, I am in the secret service, I guard the President of the United States”, after deciding to make us wait for three hours just because he had a bit of power he went, as soon as he had gone we were let through

The boring bit about me

Well, I have been about a bit and I don’t mean sex, have had a bit of a varied career to date, spent over 6 years as a Special in a County force, transferred out when the Area Officer/County Commandant became to anal retentive to cope, went out of their way to make things difficult, rather than encouraging specials to work with regular officers they wanted to control everything and get them to work with other specials.

Allot of the Specials including most of the supervisors were as useful as a chocolate fire guard, there was a couple of times when my supervisors said openly in front of probations "You know more than me so I will let you take the lead". All my time did in the county force was to show how useless specials supervision, what is needed is for more stringent appointment process for them, it should be knowledge based as well.

Cant say I had much faith in the Area Commander either, he was to concerned with figures rather than the morale of his officers, during my time on division I had 3 Area Commanders, the first was excellent, when he was Duty Superintendent, he would turn up on division in one of the sector offices and double crew with someone, he would also hold monthly meetings with officers to find out how they felt and ask if there was anything he could do as commander, his replacement stopped the meetings immediately and after he left the force having screwed up the division got the QPM, the next one was even worse.

After my time in the counties I went to a busy force which covered a large City Centre, didn’t last long there, got into a conflict with a mini Hitler, another Section Office who got their post knowing sod all about policing, the SO and one of their cronies beefed up an allegation about me, completely circumvented the law by having a time honoured specials tradition of an "Informal chat", following that was forced to resign, went to a solicitor after a bit of a battle and the threat of going public with a Judicial Review got a letter from them saying they had acted outside of the regulations but was not prepared to accept me back. From there I went to see how life was in Iraq.