By TIMOTHY WILLIAMS and OMAR AL-JAWOSHY

BAGHDAD - A growing number of Iraqi security force members are becoming dependent on drugs or alcohol, which has led to concerns about a significant addiction problem as the insurgency remains a potent force and American troops prepare to depart at the end of next year.

In some regions of Iraq, military and police officials say, as many as 50 percent of their colleagues, including high-ranking officers, use drugs or alcohol while on duty.

Those numbers, if correct, would cast doubt on the readiness of Iraqi forces to defend the country . The United States has spent more than $22 billion training and equipping Iraqi security forces since 2004, and the American military has repeatedly said Iraq’s Army and police are capable of fending off armed insurgent groups.

While there is no way to know the exact number of drug- and alcoholdependent members among Iraq’s 675,000-member security force, interviews with dozens of soldiers, police officers, political leaders, health officials, pharmacists and drug dealers indicate that drug and alcohol use among the police and the military has become increasingly common and appears to have grown significantly during the past year or so.


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Those who admit to using drugs and alcohol on duty acknowledge that the substances lead to erratic behavior, but say long hours working at checkpoints, constant fear and witnessing the grisly deaths of colleagues make drugs and alcohol less a choice than a necessity. “Pills are cheaper than cigarettes and they make you more comfortable and relaxed,” said Nazhan al-Jibouri, a police officer in Nineveh Province in northern Iraq.

“They help us forget that we are hungry, and they make it easier to deal with people. They encourage us during moments when we are facing death.” Some senior police and army officers said that because drug abusers were typically among their most fearless fighters, they were loath to take disciplinary action against them. Colonel Muthana Mohammed, an army officer in Babil Province, in southern Iraq, said the problem had escalated in part because drug treatment was a rarity.

“The percentage of the addicted among the police and army has increased because there’s no medical staff to help and there are no drug tests.” A spokesman for Iraq’s Defense Ministry, Major General Mohammed al-Askari, denied the problem. “This talk is exaggerated,” he said. “You can find one soldier or two on a brigade level, but I do not think it is something scary or popular, so it will not be a threat to our security forces.

We have medical staff concerned with the matter of drug users, and if medical tests prove drug use, we will take the harshest punishment against them.” Health officials say that on-duty drug and alcohol use among security force members is part of a larger problem of drug abuse in Iraq, where addiction has spread amid three decades of war and economic hardship.

The problem has been exacerbated by the recent proliferation of powerful prescription medications ? as well as of smuggled heroin, marijuana and hashish from Iran, Afghanistan and elsewhere.

Police and Iraqi Army officials in Diyala Province, on the Iranian border, say they believe insurgents have moved into drug smuggling to finance their activities. Illegal drugs in Iraq are readily available in cafes, markets and from dealers, including elderly women who sell pills hidden beneath their abayas.

Iraqi security force members acknowledge that habitual drug and alcohol use play a role in a general lack of discipline among Iraqi soldiers and police officers and may have contributed to several startling displays of recent violence. Major General Hazim al-Khazraji, general inspector of the Kirkuk Police in northern Iraq, said drug and alcohol consumption had multiplied among police officers seeking to ease the monotony, fatigue and danger of their jobs.

“The percentage of drug users and drunken police officers will grow as long as there are alerts and extra duty,” he said. Iraqi pharmacists and health officials said medicines intended to treat ailments from epilepsy to depression and diarrhea to insomnia are either purchased without prescription or stolen from pharmacies and mental hospitals.

When those drugs are not available, security force members say they guzzle several bottles of cough syrup at a time or drink spirits, including a potent Iraqi version of arak made from fermented dates that goes by the slang name of “white.” Khalid al-Muhamadawi, 29, said he began selling drugs to soldiers and police officers in Baghdad after a recent arrest.

Since then, he said, business has been brisk. “One day they searched me and found drugs inside my bag, so they detained me,” he said. “They said, ‘Hey, why don’t you become our friend and we’ll become your friend?’ I agreed and after that I have become their dearest friend, because I provide them with relaxing pills.” Some cities have recently established drug enforcement squads, including Falluja, in western Iraq.

The squad recently arrested a man who possessed about 200,000 pills, said Major Faisal al-Issawi, its head. “He came from the southern provinces and planned to give the pills free to security force members because he wanted them to become addicted,” Major Issawi said. “Then he planned to start charging them.”