Baghdad, February 22: Neil is a somewhat excitable, dark-haired 18-month-old German Shepherd dog but it has a healthy wet nose which crucially for the people of Iraq has been trained to sniff out explosives.
During a demonstration at a checkpoint in Baghdad, Neil scurried around a car, smelling its front and back seats, boot and bonnet, before a handler patted its head approvingly and told a temporarily inconvenienced driver he could go.
“We only check the cars we are suspicious of,” said an Iraqi police officer, who admits single male drivers are the group most likely to be stopped because they are seen as potential bombers.
A recent scandal over a fraudulent hand-held bomb-detection device which the Iraqi security forces imported from Britain to use at checkpoints, but which tests later have shown is incapable of detecting explosives, has forced them to look at other options.
The use of more sniffer dogs is a direct response.
“We have 47 bomb dogs,” said Brigadier General Mohammad Mossheb, commander of the K-9 unit at Baghdad Police College, and the officer tasked with building up the war-torn nation’s canine capability.
The German Shepherds, Belgian Shepherds (Malinois), and Labradors being used in Iraq are typically around one year old. They cost between 8,000 and 9,000 dollars and arrive from the United States or the Netherlands fully trained ahead of an expected 10-year working life.
The price is a fraction of the estimated 16,500 to 60,000 dollar cost of the ADE651, the hand-held gadget known locally as the “Magic wand,” which was illegally exported from Britain to Iraq and around 20 other countries.
However, the task facing Mossheb, 48, who trained for five years at Baghdad Veterinary College before joining the police dog unit in 1986, is immense.
“We would need 1,000 dogs to cover the entire country,” said the officer, whose uniform bears the badge of a German Shepherd with its long red tongue hanging out. “We have a plan in place but it will take time.”
The next steps are to have six dogs at each of 18 checkpoints surrounding the capital by the end of 2011, a further 20 at police stations on the east and west sides of the city, and several in each of Iraq’s 17 other provinces.
Security concerns are particularly heightened in the run-up to the country’s March 7 general election.
Mossheb is acutely aware of allegations that the ADE651, more than 1,000 of which were bought by the government, failed to detect bombs that have caused hundreds, possibly thousands, of deaths since it came into use in 2008.
“This machine has caused many problems,” he said. “But it is a matter for the government to resolve.”
But sniffer dogs are considered very reliable.
While the dogs arrive in Baghdad fully trained, a team is needed to look after them. Veterinarians, veterinary technicians and handlers are taking separate nine-week training courses at the K-9 unit’s headquarters.
Trainee handler Ammar Ali Najim, 31, from the northern city of Kirkuk, has spent one week at the police college and is acutely aware of the job’s dangers.
“Even if there is a bomb and it explodes, maybe my dog and I will die, but we might save the lives of 12 or 15 other people,” he said.
The sheer difficulty of stopping car bombs, however, is apparent on the congested streets of the capital where traffic jams are constant.
“You can’t use a dog in so much traffic as this,” handler Hussein Ismail explained, as cars roared past. “Plus some people at checkpoints are just not working hard enough.”
—Agencies