Interior Minister Jawad Bolani was named, which opened the door to
changing the National Police. Under the new Maliki administration Jabr was
switched to Finance and Bolani became Interior Minister. Bolani was considered
an independent giving him some leeway to operate outside of the other Shiite
parties who had militias in the ministry. After the 2007 Jones Report came out
he ordered an evaluation of the National Police, which found that it was still
plagued with problems. That led to a major reform effort that worked congruently
to the American one. He investigated
5,000 National Police and fired 2,300 of them by the end of the year. He
appointed a new National Police Commander General Hussein al-Awadi who was also
committed to change. Awadi got assurances that he could fire anyone without
political interference or repercussions. He then recruitednew young officers
that could carry out his reforms within the National Police, while at the same
time forcing out most of the old leadership from command positions. The
National Police Brigades also went through their own Iraqi re-training program.
They were then partnered with a U.S. unit afterward that provided oversight and
more mentoring. The Interior Ministry also recruited
more Sunnis into the National Police to try to balance out the force. One
result was that the head of the Wolf Brigade was fired, half of the unit was
broken up, and Sunnis were brought in. The Americans applied the outside
pressure, but if it wasn’t for Bolani at the top of the Interior Ministry and
General Awadi commanding the National Police the U.S. could have been ignored.
Instead, it found Iraqis who were just as committed as