Soldier helps first step in Iraq self-rule (From St Albans & Harpenden Review)

Soldier helps first step in Iraq self-rule

9:19am Tuesday 11th July 2006

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A SOLDIER from Welwyn Garden City has been helping train police officers in the first area of Iraq to be handed back to the Iraqi people.

Sergeant David Armstrong, 28, of the 1st Queen's Dragoon Guards (QDG) has been training a special unit of the Iraqi Police Service in the province of Al Muthanna, south-eastern Iraq.

The province will be the first to have security handed back to native forces later this month and the special "tactical support unit" is made up from the best policemen in the province.

Sergeant Armstrong, a former pupil at Sir Frederic Osborn School in Welwyn Garden City, is an experienced instructor, having previously worked at the Army Foundation College in Harrogate, Yorkshire.

His trainees had already attended a course with US forces in Baghdad before working with Sergeant Armstrong on practical tasks such as building clearance.

He said: "The course is only a week long but the students have progressed really well.

"The subjects have included command tasks, weapon training, arrest and restraint and building clearance and search.

"They really enjoyed the command tasks, sometimes they're better than some of the recruits back home."

When not training the locals, Sergeant Armstrong is a troop sergeant in charge of ten men and is responsible for all of the troop's administration, training and discipline.

He is no stranger to the desert, having served Iraq during the 2003 invasion, which he says was one of the highlights of his career.

He said: "I found it very fulfilling, doing the job that I'd been trained to do.

"I commanded the lead reconnaissance vehicle in the advance up the Al Faw Peninsular and we were the first vehicle to arrive at Saddam's palace in Basra.

"There has been a real change since then. There's been real progress since 2003 and now the Iraqis are actually starting to run their own country."

Sergeant Armstrong has also served in Northern Ireland, Kosovo and Bosnia and has been on exercises in Canada, Norway and Poland.

He is usually based at the Queen's Dragoon Guards' barracks in Osnabruck in northern Germany as part of the 20th Armoured Brigade.

An army spokesman said: "Training the police has been an important element of the work of the British-led coalition forces in south-eastern Iraq.

"Al Muthanna will become the first province to be handed back to the Iraqis and much of the credit for establishing a stable local government and security system is due to people like David."

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