I would like some intrepid reporter to ask Sen. John McCain about a Wednesday McClatchy report by Leila Fadel, Key U.S. Iraq strategy in danger of collapse. McCain wants everyone to acknowledge what a genius he is regarding the "surge", but he will not mention carving up Baghdad into walled off enclaves, new neighborhoods behind 12 foot high blast walls.
We introduced the concept of "gated communities". However, when we look at the future in Iraq, another American corporate concept, the "non-compete clause" is about to bite us in the ass. The Fadel report begins with the past and present:
American officials have credited the militias, known as the Sons of Iraq or Awakening councils, with undercutting support for the group al Qaida in Iraq and bringing peace to large swaths of the country, including Anbar province and parts of Baghdad. Under the program, the United States pays each militia member a stipend of about $300 a month and promised that they'd get jobs with the Iraqi government.
What does the future portend?
"All the Americans are doing is paying them just to be quiet," said Haider al Abadi.
These damn numbers and statistics have always confused the American taxpayer. I'm wondering if ANY official could tell us what is the size of our force, or the total number of personnel receiving a salary from Uncle Sam.
The United States has 103,000 militia members on its payroll.
McCain wants some kind of ribbon for brilliance, yet he will not include any mention what are facts on the ground, that years of ethnic cleansing, migration and expatriation have changed the neighborhoods. Tall buffer walls with castle-like gates have caused "checkpoint chaos" while keeping out car bombers.
But today the White House says an agreement has been reached to pull US forces out of cities by 2011. It is no small wonder, because frustrations have only been temporarily dammed up.
American military officials here have always said that the creation of the Sunni militias was at least as important to the precipitous drop in violence as the presence of 30,000 more U.S. troops, and that incorporating them into the security forces would go a long way toward bringing about the sort of reconciliation needed for long-term stability.
For about $300 a month, we have been buying time, or delaying inevitability, ever how you want to look at it. We are contending with a beligerant Prime Minister Malaki and his Shiite led government, who seem intent on insulting ex-Sunni officers. There is talk about arresting the idle militia men and confiscating their weapons, like THAT is "good idea" that can be peacefully carried out.
Colin Kahl, a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, a centrist policy institute in Washington, who recently visited Iraq, said the dispute over the militias could set the stage for a return of widespread bloodshed, particularly because the Maliki government seemed intent on thwarting the plan.
He noted that of the militia members slated to join the security forces, only 600 have completed the required training. Of those, most are Shiites.
Kahl, who spoke with senior U.S. officials during his visit to Iraq, said that the Iraqi government was providing jobs to the militia members in "humiliating ways." He said former Iraqi army officers were being absorbed as low-level beat cops, and men who saw themselves as the "slayers of al Qaida" were being asked to become plumbers and bricklayers.
"The last time we humiliated thousands of these guys is back in 2003, and we got the insurgency," Kahl said.
We have been paying these Sons of Iraq and Awakening councils with the promise of better days ahead, full assimilation into the Iraqi army and security forces. The Shiite led government has not cooperated, integration is going at a snails pace, and of the 103,000 militia members on the payroll, only a relative handful have been assigned.
About 15,000 militia members have been given security jobs since the beginning of last year, according to the U.S. military. Another 2,342 have been approved for jobs with the Iraqi police after the Iraqi army opposed absorbing them.
What we have is a potential backlog of 90,000 militia members with guns, ready to go back to old habits, kidnapping for ransom and mafia like extortion, because another non-realistic sociological "why can't they just get along" experiment is about to go bust.
"We cannot stand them, and we detained many of them recently," said one senior Iraqi commander in Baghdad, who spoke only on the condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to discuss the issue. "Many of them were part of al Qaida despite the fact that many of them are helping us to fight al Qaida."
He said the army was considering setting a Nov. 1 deadline for those militia members who hadn't been absorbed into the security forces or given civilian jobs to give up their weapons. After that, they'd be arrested, he said.
On Tuesday there was a report of a rogue operation in the Diyala province,U.S. denounces chaotic Iraqi raid. In this one, Iraqi Special forces got in a gunfight with local police.
During a raid on the government compound in Baqouba, Diyala's capital, the unit arrested the head of the provincial security council, killed the governor's secretary and confiscated cars and computers before engaging in a gunfight with local police.
A separate raid, in which the president of the local university was arrested, took place almost simultaneously.
Both men arrested are Sunni Muslims, and the Iraqi Islamic Party, the largest Sunni party in the country, immediately condemned the raids as part of a sectarian campaign by the largely Shiite Muslim security forces.
McCain is up on the stump, proclaiming victory is in sight, while sadly it looks like talking to reporters in the open is still dangerous, the McClatchy story ends with this note...
Farouk Abd al Sattar Hassan Mohammed al Obeidi, a deputy Sunni militia commander in the northern Baghdad neighborhood of Adhamiyah, wore a military uniform in an interview with McClatchy last week because he considered his men and himself to be soldiers.
He voiced frustration that his men had applied repeatedly to join the Iraqi Security Forces, to no avail.
"We wish we were part of the army. With deep remorse the government is sectarian," Obeidi said. He described his alliance with the U.S. forces as "the enemy of your enemy is your friend."
"The Sons of Iraq achieved security. Don't they deserve to enter the army?"
Obeidi will never see that happen. On Sunday, a suicide bomber on a bicycle killed him, along with five of his men and nine civilians.