When Cops Attack

With friends like these, who needs al Qaeda?

BAGHDAD-U.S. Forces battled Iraqi police and gunmen Friday, killing six policemen, after an American raid captured an Iraqi police lieutenant accused of leading a cell of Shiite militiamen, the military said. Seven gunmen also died in the fight.

U.S. and Iraqi authorities have arrested members of the police forces in the past for militia links, but Friday's violence was a rare open street battle between American troops and policemen. Cleaning the police of militants is one of the political reforms sought by Washington, though the Bush administration said in an assessment Thursday of the benchmarks that progress in the purge is "unsatisfactory."

U.S. troops captured the lieutenant in a pre-dawn raid in eastern Baghdad, but the soldiers came under "heavy and accurate fire" from a nearby Iraqi police checkpoint, as well as intense fire from rooftops and a church, the military said in a statement.

I'm going to tak a wild guess and say that the fire was accurate because we trained these Shiite-heads. Nice, huh?