Semi-retirement

Iraq | How one American policeman may change the future of Iraq | Lynn Vincent

When he retired after 29 years in police work, Lonnie Herman, 53, could have immersed himself in his hobby, turning vintage cars into hot rods. Instead, he signed up to spend a year dodging mortars and rockets in triple-digit heat.

Mr. Herman, who retired as assistant chief of police in tiny Whitefish, Mont., in late 2003, landed in Baghdad in March 2004, part of a 500-member team assembled by DynCorp, a firm the U.S. government hired to train Iraqi law enforcement officers. The initial plan: to monitor existing police and, through local precincts, mentor new cadets.

"But we had to start adjusting the mission—quickly," Mr. Herman said, because the existing Iraqi police were almost completely corrupt: "The citizens didn't like them and didn't trust them. [The police] were really just another of Saddam's thug arms." The few who did want to cooperate with the U.S. forces in effect painted targets on their own heads. Every time American police trainers visited a precinct, terrorists would bomb it the next day.