U.S. Strategy on Sunnis Questioned

[SWJED]

18 June Washington Post - U.S. Strategy on Sunnis Questioned by Joshua Partlow.

Shiite and Kurdish officials expressed deep reservations on Sunday about the new U.S. military strategy of partnering with Sunni Arab groups to help defeat the militant organization al-Qaeda in Iraq.

"They are trusting terrorists," said Ali al-Adeeb, a prominent Shiite lawmaker who was among many to question the loyalty of the Sunni groups. "They are trusting people who have previously attacked American forces and innocent people. They are trusting people who are loyal to the regime of Saddam Hussein."

Throughout Iraq, a growing number of Sunni groups profess to have turned against al-Qaeda in Iraq because of its indiscriminate killing and repressive version of Islam. In some areas, these groups have provided information to Americans about al-Qaeda in Iraq members or deadly explosives used to target soldiers.

The collaboration has progressed furthest in the western province of Anbar, where U.S. military commanders enlisted the help of Sunni tribal leaders to funnel their kinsmen into the police force by the thousands. In other areas, Sunnis have not been fully incorporated into the security services and exist for the time being as local militias...

[SteveMetz]

18 June Washington Post - U.S. Strategy on Sunnis Questioned by Joshua Partlow.

I wonder what Mr. Ali al-Adeeb's position is on Sadr and the other Shiite militas?

[SWJED]

28 July Washington Post - U.S. Widens Push to Use Armed Iraqi Residents by Ann Scott Tyson.

The U.S. military in Iraq is expanding its efforts to recruit and fund armed Sunni residents as local protection forces in order to improve security and promote reconciliation at the neighborhood level, according to senior U.S. commanders.

Within the past month, the U.S. military command in charge of day-to-day operations in Iraq ordered subordinate units to step up creation of the local forces, authorizing commanders to pay the fighters with U.S. emergency funds, reward payments and other monies.

The initiative, which extends to all Iraqis, represents at least a temporary departure from the established U.S. policy of building formally trained security forces under the control of the Iraqi government. It also provokes fears within the Shiite-led government that the new Sunni groups will use their arms against it, commanders said...

[T. Jefferson]

I believe that this type of program has been used successfully in the past as part of COIN efforts. The basic idea is to allow a community to protect itself, not to create a deployable military/police force.

Think NEIGHBORHOOD WATCH with muscles.

[Abu Buckwheat]

I believe that this type of program has been used successfully in the past as part of COIN efforts. The basic idea is to allow a community to protect itself, not to create a deployable military/police force.

Think NEIGHBORHOOD WATCH with muscles.

I hope this works but having been suckered before by the insurgents those three words are always on my lips as a caution ... 'Fallujah Protection Brigade.'

[Jedburgh]

I believe that this type of program has been used successfully in the past as part of COIN efforts. The basic idea is to allow a community to protect itself, not to create a deployable military/police force....

Unfortunately, this type of program has more often been implemented and failed abjectly, with varying degrees of negative impact, from local and short-term to regional-and-national mid-to-long term problems. For a good look at a bad program, you need only look a bit north and review the implemenation and results of Turkey's village guard progam during the height of their war against the PKK in the '90s.

However, with a society in Iraq that is already fragmented beyond simple sectarian down to tribal, clan and family lines, this poses a more serious danger of further rupturing national politics into decentralized local militia rule. (or rather speeding up and entrenching the process; it is already occurring) Like much else that has occurred over the past few years, I smell short-term expediency trumping long-term effectiveness, along with any real hope of achieving sustainable stability. To me, this move smacks of desperation, as our efforts to stand up Iraqi police, military and other security elements still fails to meet the fundamental security needs of the population.

[tequila]

In Iraq, a Perilous Alliance with Former Enemies - Washington Post, 4 Aug.

Inside a brightly lit room, the walls adorned with memorials to 23 dead American soldiers, Lt. Col. Robert Balcavage stared at the three Sunni tribal leaders he wanted to recruit.

Their fighters had battled U.S. troops. Balcavage suspected they might have attacked some of his own men. The trio accused another sheik of having links to the Sunni insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq. That sheik, four days earlier, had promised the U.S. military to fight al-Qaeda in Iraq and protect a strategic road.

"Who do you trust? Who do you not trust?" said Balcavage, commander of the 1st Battalion, 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 25th Infantry Division, his voice dipping out of earshot.

An hour later, he signed up some of America's newest allies.

U.S. commanders are offering large sums to enlist, at breakneck pace, their former enemies, handing them broad security powers in a risky effort to tame this fractious area south of Baghdad in Babil province and, literally, buy time for national reconciliation ...

Balcavage stared around the room. Fahad, Khadr and a third Jenabi leader, Falah Khadr Muhammad, sat on one side along with three other tribesmen. Farther down the table was a thick-bearded American civilian and former Special Forces soldier.

And next to Balcavage: Fadhil Youssef, a former Sunni insurgent who had spent six months in a U.S. military detention center. He was Balcavage's conduit into the arcane world of Iraq's tribes. Balcavage said he trusted him.

Speaking through an interpreter, the commander made his offer to the sheiks. Each of their men would receive about $350 a month. That pay would create an incentive to join the Iraqi police, whose salary is roughly $500, when it was possible, he said. The military would also pay the sheiks $100 for every bomb plucked off the roadside ...

They immediately accused Sheik Sabah of having links to al-Qaeda in Iraq and of playing a role in driving them off their lands.

"Sheik Sabah represents the leaders of al-Qaeda who did the killing," Fahad said.

Balcavage asked Fahad whether Sabah belonged to the Islamic Army, which is fighting al-Qaeda in Iraq, or to al-Qaeda in Iraq itself.

"Al-Qaeda," Fahad replied. Sabah, he alleged, claimed to have switched allegiances to the Islamic Army as a way to make himself more attractive to the Americans.

Perplexed, Balcavage looked at Youssef. It had been less than two weeks, but two rival factions already had arisen within the "concerned citizens." Sabah had formed a group called the VIP Council. Youssef's was called the Iraq Rescue Council.

...

Balcavage said he didn't know whether Youssef and other sheiks were trying to poison the military's relationship with Sabah. On July 23, Sabah signed an initial contract to provide 300 men and guard a key supply route to Fallujah and Baghdad.

"The only thing I know is my experience with Fadhil," said Balcavage, referring to Youssef. "I'm trusting my gut. I could be horribly wrong in this situation."

And what about Sabah? Was Balcavage worried about the al-Qaeda in Iraq allegations?

"I'm going to reel him in," Balcavage said. "To keep your enemy close type of thing. Feel him out. I'm going to see how many contacts, how much information I can find out from him. I'll bring his tribe in, if nothing else, and make sure all the agreements get signed."

On Thursday, a group of senior-ranking sheiks made contact with U.S. commanders to become "concerned citizens."

Sabah is their representative.

[Uboat509]

This is a tribal society. It has been for something like 4.000 years. Any "solution" that does not account for that will fail. I have listened to commanders talk about this issue and complain that by creating these neighborhood watches, we are creating tribal militias at the expense of the IA and IP and we are diminishing the power of the centralized elected regional government. That argument completely ignores the fact that the IA, the IP and the centralized elected regional government also have tribal ties and loyalties. Even Saddam Hussein had to make deals with the more powerful tribes. Either we co-opt the tribes into working with us, or at least in the same direction, or we go home.

SFC W