CAMP AL ASAD, Iraq – More than 500 Iraqi men were screened and accepted for service as police officers in their local communities during a three-day recruiting/screening drive in Iraq’s western Al Anbar Province recently.

U.S. Marines screened thousands of applicants Aug. 11-14, 2006, in various regions along the western Euphrates River valley, to include the border city of Al Qa’im, Haditha, and Baghdadi – a small town just miles east of this sprawling U.S. air base.

The three-day event was the most successful recruiting/screening drive for U.S. and Iraqi forces in this region to date, according to Maj. Lowell Rector, officer-in-charge of the police transition team for Regimental Combat Team 7.

Police transition teams are teams of U.S. service members who mentor, train and oversee the establishment of Iraqi police forces throughout the province...