A suicide bomber in Iraq attacked a group of police recruits. Yet again.
At the time of the Erbil attack, more than 300 people were at a recruitment center to apply for police jobs that had been widely advertised, said Karim Zingari, Erbil’s interior minister. . . . The bomber was standing among the recruits when he set off his explosives, said an official with the Kurdistan Democratic Party, whose headquarters is nearby.
This is not exactly a surprise. We’re hearing about attacks against police recruits on a weekly basis. Apparently, they all sort of stand around in lines or big groups as they wait, and they are thus vulnerable to attack.
Isn’t there a better way to recruit police in Iraq?
How about a few ideas:
1. Get some of those little cordons-on-a-pole that you see at airline ticket counters and whatnot. Cordon off a few waiting areas. Have a cop pat people down before they are allowed inside the cordon.
2. For those still outside waiting, cordon off several single-file lines. Keep people from clumping together like fans at Yankee Stadium, because that seems to be inviting casualties.
3. Break up the recruiting process. Have people with last names A-G come down at 10 am, people with last names H-R come at 2, and people with last names S-Z come at 4. Stop drawing those crowds of 300 that are prime targets for the wackos.
I don’t know if any of these particular solutions would work, and there are doubtless other improvements that could be made. (Feel free to suggest any in comments). But something needs to be done, one way or another. It’s clear that the current police recruiting system is an invitation to terrorist mayhem.
Posted by Kaimi Wenger on May 6, 2005 at 02:48 PM