By Maria Altman, St. Louis Public Radio
St. Louis, MO. – Four Iraqi police leaders from Baghdad visited the St. Louis Police Department Tuesday.
The Iraqis and their interpreter spent the morning at the department's training academy, had lunch with the police chief, then took a look at some of the department's special equipment.
Major General Dr. Jassim Hassan Attia, who leads the training institute at the Baghdad Police College, said through an interpreter he was interested to see how the police here contain explosives.
"It was one of the things they were very interested in seeing since it pertains to what they see on a daily basis over there," he said.
General Jassim also says he also was interested in how the local police work with federal officials.
He says they're working on a small scale to do the same in Iraq.
The U.S. military organized the trip.
Army Colonel Randall Twitchell says Iraqis have visited many other countries to learn about police operations and training.
"We just thought that we ought to bring them to the United States to show them how we do police work," Twitchell said. "From the different places that they visit they'll be able to craft and pull together a program of their own, which will assist them going forward."