Cleaning Up the Iraqi Police

Prime Minister Maliki has suspended an entire brigade to cleanse it of corruption. But is it any more than a political gesture?

The suspension this week of an entire Iraqi police brigade of roughly 700 men is the most dramatic step as yet taken by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government to deal with its corrupt and inept security forces. But TIME's correspondents in Baghdad, Aparisim Ghosh and Brian Bennett, warn that this may be no more than a fig leaf, designed to shore up al-Maliki's political standing, rather than the start of a substantial clean-up.