New Passports, Again

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.