http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/26/international/middleeast/26mideast. html?th&emc=th
Security Forces of Palestinians Are Found Unfit By STEVEN ERLANGER Published: July 26, 2005 JERUSALEM, July 25 - The security forces of the Palestinian Authority are divided, weak, overstaffed, badly motivated and underarmed, and more attention must be paid to building up institutions rather than personalities, says the first independent survey of the complicated Palestinian security environment since the death of Yasir Arafat. The survey, a copy of which was provided to The New York Times by the authors a day before publication, was prepared in close coordination with Lt. Gen. William E. Ward, the American-appointed coordinator of the effort to overhaul the chaotic Palestinian security apparatus, and the Palestinian Authority. It has been reviewed by senior American and Palestinian officials, including those in the office of the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas. It is an internationally supported effort to analyze the current deficiencies of the Palestinian security forces while suggesting a long-term program of improvement to help guide foreign donors and the Palestinians themselves. The report also represents an effort to plan Palestinian security cooperation with Israel before, during and after the Israeli pullout of its settlers from the Gaza Strip, scheduled to begin in mid- August. General Ward, who is to testify on Tuesday before the House Appropriations Committee in Washington, is the international coordinator for the security side of the pullout. The report sees the biggest risks to a successful Israeli disengagement coming from rocket or mortar attacks carried out by Islamic Jihad or other smaller, local militant groups that are not invested in Palestinian politics; from the risk of Israeli settler incursions intended "to provoke a violent Palestinian reaction" and pull in the Israeli Army; and from the continuing lack of clarity about the Israeli Army's intentions. Continuing violence against Israelis by Palestinian militants in Gaza could also prompt the Israeli Army to move into Palestinian areas to create a wide buffer zone before the pullout begins, with a likelihood of fierce clashes, civilian casualties and a collapse of effective coordination between the two sides. The 83-page report, "Palestinian Security Assessment," was prepared by a Washington-based group called Strategic Assessments Initiative, which has worked in other hot spots like Kosovo, East Timor and Macedonia to provide security analysis and negotiating advice to aid conflict resolution. The study was financed by the Dutch and Canadian governments, and it was made a part of the coordination mandate given to General Ward at an international conference in London in March, said Jarat Chopra, who heads the group's Jerusalem office. Mr. Chopra, who teaches international law at Brown University and has worked with the Palestinian Authority in the past, said in an interview on Monday that his team of security and political experts had been in daily contact with General Ward's team and central Palestinian players like Nasser Youssef, the interior minister. Israeli officials have been interviewed for source material and assessments but have not seen the report, Mr. Chopra said. Asked whether General Ward was in general agreement with the report's conclusions, Mr. Chopra said, "We haven't heard of many contradictions." The report should not be viewed as representing absolute truth, he said, adding, "We're working in a confused environment, a moving target, and it's the best we could do under the circumstances." The essential problem for the Palestinian Authority, the report says, is that its security forces were established on "an ad hoc basis without statutory support and in isolation of wider reforms," a lasting legacy of Mr. Arafat's policy of duplication and promoting rivalry within his organization. The security forces in Gaza are somewhat stronger than those in the West Bank, but suffer from a continuing lack of coordination, the report says. "The critical gap is in command and control," Mr. Chopra said. "There's a blurring between state actors and non-state actors, and that's very difficult from the military point of view." Despite recent changes by Mr. Abbas, centralizing most forces under Mr. Youssef, that formal structure does not reflect the realities of power, the report indicates. For example, former chiefs of preventive security like Jibril Rajoub and Mahmoud Dahlan, who have no line authority over the security forces now, have powerful influence over them and play an important security coordination role with Israel. The current chief of preventive security, Gen. Rashid Abu Shabak, is considered a Dahlan loyalist with weak ties to Mr. Youssef, and divisions between the West Bank and Gaza are deep. There are also largely unintegrated forces like General Intelligence, Military Intelligence, Special Security, Special Forces and the Political Direction Department, a Soviet-style group charged with political orientation of the army. Tenuous control over intelligence "creates a risk of divergent security objectives and a lack of coordination and doctrine," the report says dryly. "It also raises the risk of these forces resisting efforts to bring them into the fold." Nor does the formal structure take account of the powerful role of Palestinian clans in various security forces, the chaotic nature of Fatah's own fighters or of local powers in individual refugee camps. The report's picture of the state of the Palestinian security forces is sobering, even as senior Israeli military officials, as well as Israeli politicians, insist that Mr. Abbas has sufficient manpower and arms to dismantle the militant groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad if only he would decide to do so. Israel has refused requests by General Ward to allow the Palestinians to import new armored vehicles and fresh supplies of arms. After Israel went to war against the Palestinian security forces in the spring of 2002 - a year and a half into the current Palestinian intifada, or uprising - destroying much of their infrastructure, the current quality of arms and ammunition is low and deteriorating. "The current ratio of personnel to weapons is 4 to 1," the report says. "Meanwhile, non-state factions" like Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the various fighters of Al Aksa Martyrs Brigades and local groups like the Tanzim and the Popular Resistance Committee "are, by contrast, relatively well armed." Ammunition "is in very short supply, and much of what is available is in poor condition and unreliable," the report says. Given the tradition of rivalry and personal command, it says, the security forces have little uniformity in equipment or training, considerable embezzlement, few all-terrain vehicles, few radios and no coherent communications network other than the civilian mobile phone system. Still, there have already been significant changes, Mr. Chopra said, including an age limit on service, the appointment of Mr. Youssef, the reorganization of institutional hierarchies and the firing of some longserving commanders. In the longer term, he said, continuing structural reform is the only way to build a credible Palestinian security that can provide internal order and a reliable relationship with Israel that could lead to a permanent peace. On Monday, the Israeli Army commander for Gaza, Gen. Dan Harel, said the army wanted to carry out the disengagement there in a continuous process over no more than three weeks, including nights but not the Sabbath. Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a critic of the pullout, warned that Gaza could become "a radical Islamic terrorist base" because of the weakness of the Palestinian Authority. Mr. Abbas announced that he was moving to Gaza for the duration of the pullout, to try to ensure that it goes smoothly. -------------------------- Want to discuss this topic? 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