Indeed, Iraq had a police/security force but when the Baath party was eliminated the government no longer could function and now it was up to the occupying force to be that police force.
We are lucky in the US and the developed world to have security, I could not imagine living in a nation where car bombs were commonplace.
When a nation is conqured and infrastructure distroyed what results is chaos and lawlessness, and what sucks in Iraq is because so many their hate us, and their are so many 'rules' governing what the US military can do as far as suspects its rediculous. If a combat situation were to arise then the rules of engadgement apply, they cant fire unless fired upon first. However, in many cases if they witness someone planting bombs, that is engadgement if I am correct and they can be captured or killed. If however its just suspision, they cant simply hunt them down and arrest them, but the US military needs permission from the government to capture them, its quite rediculous, it hampers the US military from being able to do their jobs and makes me sick because it could save lives if they could just get um.
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DX'ed with HFA as a child. However this was in 1987 and I am certain had I been DX'ed a few years later I would have been DX'ed with AS instead.