How Courting Sheiks Slowed Violence In Iraq
By Greg Jaffe
RAMADI, Iraq -- To understand how the U.S. managed to bring relative calm to Iraq's unruly Anbar province, it helps to pay a visit to Sheik Hamid Heiss's private compound.
On a recent morning, a 25-year-old Marine Corps lieutenant from Ohio stacked $97,259 in cash in neat piles on Sheik Heiss's gilded tea table. The money paid for food for the sheik's tribe and for two school renovation projects on which the sheik himself is the lead contractor. Even the marble-floored meeting hall where the cash was handed over reflects recent U.S. largesse: The Marines paid Sheik Heiss and his family $127,175 to build it on his private compound.
Such payments have encouraged local leaders in this vast desert expanse to help the U.S. oust al Qaeda extremists and restore a large measure of stability and security. Today, Anbar is averaging about 100 attacks a week, down from 425 a week last year. On the main street in Ramadi, Anbar's main city, Iraqi laborers are removing three years of accumulated rubble that couldn't be carted off previously because of the threat of sniper fire. They're fixing sewer lines shredded by years of roadside bombs. The work is taking place on the same thoroughfare where al Qaeda in Iraq late last year staged a parade of fighters that was posted on Jihadi Web sites.
"For three years we fought our asses off out here and made very little progress," says Lt. Col. Michael Silverman, who oversees an 800-soldier battalion in Ramadi. "Now we are working with the sheiks, and Ramadi has gone from the most dangerous city in the world to a place where I can sit on Sheik Heiss's front porch without my body armor and not have to worry about getting shot."
The success in Anbar Province, which lies west of Baghdad, hasn't come easily. The key to the U.S. campaign has been recruiting, cultivating, and rewarding tribal leaders. At points, the effort even involved a Marine general making several trips abroad to woo an important exiled tribal sheik to return home. The progress here, which has unfolded as violence elsewhere in Iraq has climbed, has become central to American hopes of success in the deeply divided country. President Bush has repeatedly touted it and U.S. commanders throughout Iraq are looking to export the Marine model.
But as remarkable as the turnaround here has been, it isn't clear how broad or lasting the gains will be. With the threat of al Qaeda now gone from their area, many of the Anbari sheiks have begun to jockey with each other for power and influence. More ominously, some tribal leaders, including Sheik Heiss, complain that their real enemy now isn't al Qaeda, but a Shiite-dominated government in Baghdad -- the government the U.S. is trying to build up....
...Today, the sheiks' biggest fear is that the Americans will leave them to the devices of a failing, sectarian government in Baghdad. Recently, the U.S. military flew a small group of national security experts to Anbar province to have dinner with Fallujah sheiks at the Marines' base. The think-tankers, who hailed from the Brookings Institution, listened as the sheiks, who came from the Jumaily and Issa tribes, described their frustrations. "We have gotten rid of al Qaeda but we have other organizations that are worse," said Sheik Mishan, referring to the Iraqi government.
One of the Fallujah sheiks then reached out a hand and placed it on Gen. Allen's knee. "This is my government," he said proudly.
Gen. Allen sighed. "Unfortunately, that is the problem," he said.
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