Several weeks ago, Lt. Col. Kurt Pinkerton came face to face with the leading edge of a movement that senior coalition officials say has significant potential to shift the war against al-Qaida in Iraq in their favor.
Pinkerton, commander of 1st Cavalry Division’s 2nd Battalion, 5th Cavalry Regiment, was meeting a tribal sheikh in the Baghdad suburb of Abu Ghraib.
“The battalion commander goes to meet with this sheikh,” said Gen. David Petraeus, head of Multinational Forces-Iraq and the senior U.S. commander in country.
Pinkerton knew that the sheikh and his tribesmen were “sort of on the edge” of those who had been fighting the coalition.
“These guys are more resistance than hard-core insurgency,” Petraeus said. “They’re a tribe, and the tribe has sort of helped the insurgents a bit.”
But the sheikh had a surprise for Pinkerton. He told the lieutenant colonel the tribe was ready to take up arms against al-Qaida.
“What makes you think you could possibly turn out volunteers?” Pinkerton asked him, according to Petraeus.
“Well, come out back,” the sheikh replied.
When Pinkerton stepped outside, Petraeus said, he found roughly 2,000 tribesmen staring back at him. “And they all want to be provisional police,” the general added ...
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