Reorganized

Iraq's Interior Ministry has fired or reassigned more than 10,000 employees, including high-ranking police, who were found to have tortured prisoners, accepted bribes or had ties to militias, a ministry spokesman has disclosed.

A soon-to-be-released internal inquiry also details 41 incidents of human rights abuse at the ministry. In one case, four members of the national police hanged prisoners from a ceiling and beat them with sticks in a ministry-run prison known as Site 4, according to the report by the ministry's inspector general.

The United States has pressured Iraq's Shiite-led government to clean up its security forces as they undertake a broad plan to reduce sectarian violence. Sunni politicians have accused Iraq's police of collaborating with Shiite death squads.

There have been problems of all sorts with the Interior Ministry from the outset. There have been repeated issues with human rights abuses, bribery and corruption, and large segments with ties to various militias, which made the effectiveness of parts the Interior Ministry security forces questionable.

The police and local security is still seen as having divided loyalties - those of the militias versus the Iraqi government, this shakeup may improve matters. It comes at a time when the US and Iraqis are trying to clamp down on the violence in and around Baghdad and Anbar - and are largely succeeding thus far.

The Iraqi government must believe that the time is right to make these changes because it is in a strong enough position to take on the entrenched interests at the ministry and the Sadrists.

Omar at Iraq the Model has more on the situation.