It started as a somber, formal ceremony with security uppermost in everyone's mind. It ended with an American serviceman clasping hands with an Iraqi police academy graduate as they kicked up their heels, dancing to drums and bagpipes.

U.S. Army Col. Teddy Spain, commander 18th MP brigade, 3rd left, dance with Iraqi police officers, who have completed the Army's three-week police Transition Integration Program during their graduation ceremony, at the Public Safety Academy in Baghdad, Iraq, Aug.14, 2003.. [AP]

Apache helicopters circled above the Iraqi Public Service Academy Thursday as 145 Iraqi police officers graduated from a three-week training program for officers who served on the force when Saddam Hussein was in power.

Lt. Col. Todd Harrison from the 168th Military Police battalion for the 18th Military Police Brigade said security was boosted because of an attack last month on a similar ceremony. Seven police recruits were killed in Ramadi when a bomb blast tore through a graduation parade.

"This is a very secure area, but also there is strong support here for the Iraqi police," said Harrison, of Indianapolis.

His battalion of 32 military police trained the officers in a "more democratic way of policing," Harrison said, focusing on human rights, arrest techniques and laws of detention.

Despite the 12,000 police already on the street in the capital, Baghdad citizens say they still feel unsafe going to work or going out to restaurants or the shops.

But Mohammed Naama, 38, one of the graduates, said that while the situation in Baghdad was still unsettled, it was improving.

"The people, they respect the police, and when they see us out in the street, it helps restore their confidence in the law," he said, after asking permission from his U.S. military supervisor to step away from the group of graduates to speak to a reporter.

For Abdel Aziz Khisro, Thursday was a double celebration. Only hours after his graduation, he was to be married. A Kurd, he said critics of the new system belonged to the old era. "They're used to being oppressed and oppressing," he said, while watching Iraqi police link fingers with U.S. soldiers and dance in a circle.

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