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Iraq: New Passports, Again
8.12.2005
By Daud Salman in Baghdad (ICR No. 155, 07-Dec-05)
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Interior ministry
prints high-quality passports in an attempt to
reduce forgeries.
The Iraqi interior ministry is to issue new
high-quality passports next year in an attempt to
crack down on foreign insurgents travelling into the
country on false documents.
Iraqis applying for new passports are required to
have their eyes scanned, and the images will be held
on a database at the interior ministry. The
new-style document is similar to the passport first
issued in 2004, but will also include the pupil
image, thumbprints, codes and special seals that the
government maintains are difficult to forge.
The passports are part of a wider initiative to
improve the security of personal documents; new
identity cards started being issued last month.
"The interior ministry is trying to curb the
numerous cases of forgery," said Sayid Khalid
Hussein, spokesman for the interior ministry's
Baghdad travel documents office. "The [pre-2004]
documents could be forged easily, and enabled
foreign fighters to enter the country and live in
most areas of Iraq."
The defence ministry says it has captured foreign
fighters using false passports and ID.
The Iraqi military and security forces are
conducting operations across the country as they try
to gain control of Iraqi security as violence
continues to rise. Like the United States, the Iraqi
government blames foreign fighters who it believes
enter the country from Syria or Iran for wreaking
havoc on the country.
The new passports will mark the third time the
government has changed Iraq's travel documents since
Saddam Hussein's regime was toppled in 2003.
Travel documents were difficult to obtain during the
rule of former president Saddam Hussein, and
passports were regulated by a department linked to
the security apparatus.
"The former regime made it hard for Iraqis to travel
abroad by forcing them to change their passports
periodically, on the pretext of security measures,"
said Abdul-Wadud Abdul-Aziz, an employee at the
Aazamiyah passport office in Baghdad. "Nowadays, we
try to make it easier for citizens to travel."
After Saddam's regime was toppled, government
offices were looted and papers, official documents
and seals were stolen, creating a thriving black
market in forged passports.
New passports were issued by the US-controlled
Coalition Provisional Authority, but people
travelling on them were often questioned at foreign
borders and had to show additional identification.
At the beginning of 2004, the passport agency issued
a new, high-quality passport, but it was valid for
just one year. The latest documents are effectively
an improved version of the 2004 model, and will be
good for four years.
Some Baghdad residents said that the repeated
changes make getting identification documents a
bureaucratic hassle.
"I'm tired of changing my passport so many times,"
said Zeidoon Mohammed, a 45-year-old businessman.
"This is the fourth one I've had to change since
2001."
He complained that procedure for obtaining passports
is poorly planned. It should take three days to
issue identity documents, but bureaucracy often
stalls the process, which can involve hanging around
government offices all day. A bribe of 10,000 dinars,
or six dollars, added to the official 25-dollar fee
will speed the process.
Hamda Salim, a mother of four living in New Baghdad,
said she had twice tried to get identity cards for
her children, but has not made any headway.
Khalid Abid, who heads a government office
responsible for civil status in Baghdad, admitted
that the process could be delayed, but said older
forms of identification were still valid.
Businessman Mahmoud Abdullah said he hoped the new
passports would finally resolve matters, and that
they would "be recognised as credible by
neighbouring countries and the rest of the world".
Daud Salman is an IWPR trainee journalist in
Baghdad.
www.iwpr.net
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