But don't hold your breath. There won't be quick, template-like results even if insurgent, terrorist and sectarian violence in the country continues to decrease. Training the trainers is the easy part -- you can set schedules, hold classes, have graduations. But mentoring is another matter. It's a long process of turning lessons into habits, of overcoming a cultural divide.

Col. Stefan Bien and his company-sized unit of Marines from 2nd Battalion, 7th Marines, civilian contractors, and Iraqi interpreters work the effort every day in and near the land port of al-Waleed in northwestern Anbar province. Their charges include the new Iraqi Border Police force.

Day in and day out, Bien and his men mentor the BPP by acting as advisers as well as backup firepower.

"That truck is in the wrong position," Bien told an Iraqi officer of the Desert Wolves, the Second Iraq Brigade of the new force. "It gives no protection where it is now. Its gun would have to shoot upward. It's on the wrong side of the road to give covering fire."

Bien made the observation several times. Gently at first, then more forcefully before the Iraqi BPP captain, at the order of a senior Iraqi officer also observing their mission, moved the pickup to a new location.

The operation -- about 16 BPPs and a handful of Marines joining in it -- was to inspect trucks and passenger cars that had left the port and were heading in the direction of Baghdad from Syria. The Iraqis set up a makeshift roadblock along the main highway using concertina wire. Papers were checked, cargoes cursorily given the once-over, and if all was in order the vehicles were allowed to proceed.

Throughout the Iraqi operation and the march to and from the BPP headquarters near the port, Bien and Capt. David Padilla of Binghamton, N.Y., watched, made notes and conversed with the Iraqi BPP colonel on how the Iraqi forces performed. They only interfered once -- when the BPP pickup truck with its machine gun was placed in an incorrect position.

At a debriefing after the roadblock was dismantled, Iraqi commanders and troops discussed among themselves the positives and negatives of the operation and how things could be improved. Bien and Padilla later reinforced the discussion with their own observations. For all intents and purposes, it was a double-header positive reinforcement chorus. But later, when the lower-ranking police left the debriefing room, the errant captain was called aside.

"Now for the bad stuff," Padilla said, motioning the captain and an interpreter to go outside of the 2nd Brigade BPP briefing room. "I want to do this in private. I don't want him to be embarrassed in front of his men."

Debrief and admonishment was followed by Iraqis and Americans sitting down together for a meal of lamb kebobs and flat bread.

The road interdiction operation would be repeated over and over again until they got it right.

U.S. authorities at Camp Waleed say the Desert Wolves have proven themselves capable of planning, coordinating and conducting their own operations along the 500 kilometer border with Syria. But the new force, which has 14 outposts along the frontier, is plagued with institutional problems, including a lack of competent junior officers -- the Waleed headquarters captain, for instance, apparently received his appointment and commission through tribal connections and has no police or military experience. The force also receives little funding from Baghdad. U.S. forces take up the slack somewhat by giving them money for fuel for their patrol vehicles, but sometimes the amounts of fuel bought on the open market and put into the vehicles don't jive with vehicle odometer readings and lower fuel tank levels after missions are completed. It is suspected fuel was sometimes sold on the black market.

And then there are the occasional problems with morale. The Iraqis lack of will and enthusiasm for doing their jobs when nursing a personal slight, real or perceived, has been a vexation for Bien and his Marines in the past. But the BPP force at Waleed has a new commander, who the Marines hope will run a tighter operation. The officer, Col. Hassan Ahmed Zawba, a Shiite Muslim from Baghdad, is a former army officer and graduate of a staff officer's academy.

The mentoring of port personnel has its own problems. The port of entry, one of the largest in the country, has been given no government operating funds. It pays for its own operations with the fees they impose on people who use the facility.

The lack of funding shows: broken sewer pipes oozing their contents onto the ground right by the main customs and immigration facility; unrepaired bomb damage from a much earlier car-bomb attack; lack of dependable electrical power; and deep ruts in the roads leading to the port from which even a four-wheel-drive vehicle would have trouble maneuvering.

Maj. Thomas Bell, with 11 other Marines and three contractors, praise the dedication of the passport and customs personnel but fret over Baghdad's neglect of the facility and its workers. And the Americans have yet to hammer down what exactly are the various fees and customs duties charged the more than 100 trucks that pass from Syria into Iraq each day.

"We're about to have a showdown on this," Bell said. "They've produced some official-looking fee schedules, but when we've questioned them about it they can't adequately explain who or what department set the fees."

Lack of funding and lack of transparency, he said, have fit in naturally with the ingrained system of facilitation in Iraq and many other countries in the region and beyond: "bakseesh" -- bribery.

When a port official left his post under suspicious circumstances one afternoon, Port Waleed's new director mounted a search of the room the errant official shared with others. He found about $1,800 in cash, plus other currencies. A confession revealed the cash was just one morning's take of bribes and money extorted from truckers and private individuals using port facilities.

"I know giving and taking bribes is common in Iraq and part of their way of doing things," Bien said. "Some tolerate it more than others. My tolerance threshold is low, very, very low."

The men caught red-handed were arrested and face trial.

But for all the problems, progress is being made at the port of Waleed. Passport officers are fully trained and use the Pices system that more than 50 other countries use, regularly picking up false documents and suspect individuals who are pulled aside for questioning and arrest if warranted. Several people suspected of connections to the insurgency in Iraq have been detained because of the system. About a third of port users are also randomly pulled aside and given extra screening. Retinal scans by Marines and fingerprints are checked against a special security database.

About 130 people, in addition to commercial truck drivers, pass through the port each day. Iraqi officials say the number will jump to more than 600 daily once the Haj (pilgrimage) to Mecca begins.

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