This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2007, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

One month is hardly enough time to change the world. But for one Provo soldier in Iraq, it's all the time he is given.

Every month, Dana Tucker welcomes about 2,000 new Iraqi police officers through the gates of the Numaniya National Police Academy, 70 miles south of Baghdad. There he presides over a sandstorm of training - from protecting human rights to gathering evidence to operating against insurgents - before returning the graduates to their duties on the streets of the civil-war-torn nation.

In a place of endemic corruption, tit-for-tat killings and insurgent infiltration of the national police forces, Tucker recognizes that the group of civilian trainers he oversees is unlikely to bring Iraq's fledgling force up to par with their Western counterparts in a mere month of training.

"I don't think you wipe out years and years of culture with 30 days of training, by any means, but it's a move in the right direction," said Tucker, a card-carrying, cardigan-wearing academic - he has a doctorate in psychology and an MBA from Brigham Young University - in his civilian life.

"In a class of 2,000, some are going to get it," he said. "Some aren't going to get it."

"It" is a protect-and-serve concept of policing, foreign to those whose ideas about police were shaped by decades of tyranny under Saddam Hussein.

But though the U.S.-led invasion may have wiped out Saddam's reign, it didn't eliminate a might-makes-right policing philosophy that critics say is now enjoyed by Iraq's Shiite-led Ministry of the Interior, which controls the nation's civilian security forces. Changing the way Iraqis think about policing can be difficult at the best of times - and the nation's police officers are not enjoying the best of times right now. More than 1,400 have been killed since the beginning of the year, with many thousands more injured in shootings, bombings and suicide attacks.

Though more than 54,000 Iraqi police officers are on duty - including some 13,000 trained in Numaniya - lawlessness and violence continues throughout the nation. On Tuesday alone, more than 175 were killed in four suicide bombing attacks in northern Iraq, according to Iraqi military officials. It was the deadliest attack in eight months.

Tucker said the terroristic violence - and a desire on the part of new officers to respond in-kind - means "we have to work harder to make the case for why things need to be done differently."

But it has been a slow process. Bush administration officials recently termed "not satisfactory" Iraq's progress in ensuring that its security forces are providing evenhanded enforcement of the law, according to a recent paper by Anthony Cordesman, an expert on the military and the Middle East at the Center for Strategic & International Studies.

"Most areas are under police or local security forces with strong sectarian, ethnic and tribal ties," Cordesman wrote in his review of 18 "benchmarks" thought to be key for long-term stability in Iraq. "Police corruption and inactivity were common, and the U.S. and government increasingly had to rely on local tribal forces."

Cordesman noted bleakly that "the so-called 'year of the police' in 2006 had given way to the 'year of local forces' in 2007 in much of Iraq."

It has also given way to a government ever more dominated by Shiite leaders - and ever more accused of favoritism by Iraq's Kurdish, Sunni and Turkmen minorities, even as U.S. officials have pressed for greater diversity.

In May, Tucker dined with Gen. Ra'ad Eyas Amin - the commander of a national police brigade undergoing training at Numaniya - whose forceful promises to fight for a peaceful Iraq had been much heralded by U.S. military officials. The next week, Ra'ad was relieved of his command by ministry officials. Tucker said the general's U.S. Army counterparts suspected he'd been fired "because he was the wrong religious affiliation."

Meanwhile, the United States has placed a potentially deadly wager on the efforts at Numaniya and other police and army training programs throughout Iraq, one Tucker said he and his colleagues acknowledge "in our black humor moments."

Last month, U.S. forces clashed with Iraqi police in Baghdad. It was a limited battle - seven Iraqi police officers reportedly lost their lives; there were no U.S. casualties - but it was not the first time a group of Iraqi police fought against the very troops that trained them.

Despite such setbacks and risks, Tucker doesn't want the Numaniya training program done away with. Yet at the moment, there's no contract in place to continue the training after this summer's end.

U.S. Army officials did not respond to a Salt Lake Tribune request for information about what will become of the Numaniya academy this fall. Tucker speculated that the training might be handed over to the Ministry of Interior, but said he remained in the dark about what he'll be doing for the rest of his tour of duty.

In the meantime, Tucker said, he'll continue to press ahead - proud of what he's accomplished, hopeful of what might come and wary of the consequences at hand.