Finally: Iraqi government to start integrating Sunnis into security forces
posted at 6:33 pm on December 18, 2007 by Allahpundit
Tens of thousands of Sunni tribesmen came over to the U.S. side as part of the various anti-AQ “awakening” movements around the country. The military’s been begging Maliki to do something with them before they throw up their hands and walk away. And now, at last:
Iraq’s Shiite-dominated government has agreed to take over support of a U.S.-funded plan that has organized thousands of Iraqis — including former insurgents and their sympathizers — into local security groups…
Iraq intends to move the guards into training programs as quickly as possible, [national reconciliation officer Saad] Muttalibi said. “It’s not a good idea to have people with guns running around the streets,” he said…
The Iraqi government eventually wants to disband the local security groups and take 12,000 to 20,000 people into the Iraqi security forces. The remainder would receive job training paid for by the U.S. and Iraqi governments.
Both governments have always viewed the groups as “a stopgap measure where there were insufficient police and security forces,” said Army Maj. Gen. Michael Jones, commander of the Civilian Police Assistance Training Team. “They were never intended to be permanent.”
Why only 12,000 when the Iraqi army needs manpower and there are 50,000 more recruits to be had? For the obvious reason, I’m sure — because the Shiite government’s worried about absorbing too many Sunnis too quickly and risking wholesale sectarian balkanization within the forces (not to mention limiting Sunni access to military hardware). Start small and, if things go well, integrate more later. Although why would they want to? The real goal here for the Shia is to get the guns out of the Sunnis’ hands, not replace what they’ve got with U.S.-made IA-issued M-16s. Hence the importance of the jobs training program: If things work out, they’ve got a token force of 12,000 Sunnis they can point to as proof of their goodwill plus 50,000 more who have traded their Kalashnikovs for lunchboxes. Sweet deal. And if the jobs training doesn’t work out? We’ll be paying them some sort of “salary” anyway. Remember, the cost of compliance for all 67,000 Sunnis in the awakening program amounts to less than the cost of a single Apache helicopter. At that price some economic arrangement will doubtless be reached, probably in the form of manual labor for reconstruction.
If you’re looking for more good news, you’ve found it. Although do note the last line for proper perspective.
Blowback
Note from Hot Air management: This section is for comments from Hot Air's community of registered readers. Please don't assume that Hot Air management agrees with or otherwise endorses any particular comment just because we let it stand. A reminder: Anyone who fails to comply with our terms of use may lose their posting privilege.
Trackbacks/Pings
Trackback URL
Comments
ANyone want to take a bet where, assuming they do, this will be covered in the new york times? A23?
Defector01 on December 18, 2007 at 6:38 PM
I love it how the democrats are ignoring this progress as hard as they can.
Running on Bush Derangement Syndrome isn’t all peaches cream, is it, Nancy?
Dr. Gecko on December 18, 2007 at 6:40 PM
And…3.2.1
Entelechy on December 18, 2007 at 6:44 PM
I have personal reasons to hope everything keeps getting better in Iraq. But we need to realize we are just getting back to the way it was in 2004, and many were complaining about the deaths in 2004.
bnelson44 on December 18, 2007 at 6:46 PM
Yes, the Shiite-led government is wary and closely vetting them before approving hires, but that is not the main reason why “not all 62,000.”
The Iraqi Police and Army are not slated to grow by 50,000 in the near-term, the numbers are not needed in all the CLC areas, and not all CLC members want to leave home (making the Army not an option) … so hiring all of them into ISF is not possible, unless you want the government of Iraq to make a police force ready-made for the possibility of militia infiltration.
As noted, the Coalition and Iraqi Follow-Up Committee for National Reconciliation is working on a program that will funnel the excess into public works projects a la Roosevelt’s gig during the Great Depression.
I’ve been researching this story for a month and will have something very detailed at the new year.
BillINDC on December 18, 2007 at 6:49 PM
This is the best bet, but it sure seems to be taking a long time.
bnelson44 on December 18, 2007 at 6:51 PM
Well I’ll be, our second amendment is getting respect in Iraq!
sonnyspats1 on December 18, 2007 at 6:54 PM
Well, it’s starting to sound like we may be over the proverbial hump in Iraq. Surely there will be many difficult times ahead, but you know when the MSM starts talking about jobless rates and the “mortgage crisis” there’s not much bad (or in their minds, good) news to harp on in their never-ending quest to lose this war.
I hate to ask this of my fellow commenters but the local news web-poll regarding Iraq has been hijacked and it would be great if you could vote here to even the field a bit. Thanks in advance.
NTWR on December 18, 2007 at 6:54 PM
Iraqis begin to emerge from the dark
bnelson44 on December 18, 2007 at 7:01 PM
ABCNews:
Yes, but the trend was worsening, whereas now things are trending better… even if it’s not fast enough for the Washington Post.
Should we ever get an uptick in violence, I’m sure the MSM will use the large percentage increase from a small base number to claim that things are back to Hell-in-a-handbasket, too.
Karl on December 18, 2007 at 7:15 PM
The MSM might even encourage a little uptick in violence. Why not, they doctored stories and photos. I wouldn’t be surprised if they staged an event just for the “see, i told you so” moment.
Kini on December 18, 2007 at 7:40 PM
Yes and no. I’m not so sure it is, or depends, is how I’d answer that. The Surge and reduction in violence has been going on for 6 months and about 9 months in Anbar specifically. The CLC program is younger than that. And you have to remember that none of the steps we are clamoring for were possible before all that.
The Iraqi Government is very inefficient, has sectarian impulses (some of them rational) and is building administrative capacity from scratch. To some extent a lot of the delay is incompetence rather than malice, and when you look at the unskilled administrators US advisors are working with, a little patience and US brokerage may be the prescription. As you can see with getting the government to pick up the CLC program, this can eventually pay dividends in the new era of better security.
Plus you have to sort of convince many of the Iraqis that your idea is really their great idea.
Painful, frustrating, hair-pulling baby steps.
BillINDC on December 18, 2007 at 8:43 PM
Progress. Real progress. Very nice. Well done General Petraeus.
Zorro on December 18, 2007 at 8:48 PM
How is this beneficial to the US? Its common knowledge to Bush that Islam intends to colonise all of Western Europe in the next few years (he posed with Mark Steyn who autographed his copy of America Alone) yet his response is to send the US military to beg Maliki for political a compromise so we can all go on believing that moderate Islam (which anyone who has read Robert Spencer, i.e. everyone on this blog, knows does not exist) will triumph.
Three questions here for HotAir readers: 1. Do you support the nation-building exercise in Iraq? 2. Do you believe in the existence of a moderate Islam? 3. If you answered yes and no respectively to the two previous questions how do you reconcile these two mutually repulsive avenues of thought?
aengus on December 18, 2007 at 9:05 PM
Is this actual integration?
If the Sunnis “brought in” are kept in separate Sunni units it is not integration.
MB4 on December 18, 2007 at 9:11 PM
No.
Not really.
I didn’t answer yes and no, but will answer anyway, as long as it doesn’t cost me anything. Cognitive dissonance.
MB4 on December 18, 2007 at 9:17 PM
I doubt you can sort of convince a majority of Iraqis that your idea (liberalism) is really their great idea (Islam).
aengus on December 18, 2007 at 9:46 PM
They are not kept in separate Sunni units in he CLCs, nor will they be in the IP, except in traditionally segregated areas (like all Sunni Anbar). In Diyala specifically there are mixed rosters.
BillINDC on December 18, 2007 at 10:41 PM
That doesn’t make any sense in the context I provided it. And on another level, lots of Iraqis are basically secular, so your broad characterizations about Islam don’t apply across Iraqi society even if they were correct.
I agree with your observation that folks who agree with you about all Muslims being immutable adherents to a death cult show inconsistency when they support nation-building in Iraq. MB4 and Spencer himself have shown intellectual consistency in this regard.
But fortunately for me, I support nation-building in Iraq and reject Spencer’s overall thesis about the immutability of the Muslim world, if not rejecting all the particulars of his theological analysis.
BillINDC on December 18, 2007 at 10:49 PM
It comes down to how much you think America can influence their society and culture with improved administration, rule of law, etc. I think the US can influence Iraq quite a bit.
BillINDC on December 18, 2007 at 10:59 PM
If they are secular [or "moderate"], then they be apostates and are in defiance of Allah himself.
No moderate can legitimately tell another Muslim to stop doing the extremist things Mohammed himself did.People whom we call moderates [or secular] are labeled hypocrites by Allah Himself in the Qur’an. Moderates will always lose the argument because, as ex-Muslim author Ibn Warraq says, “There may be moderates in Islam but Islam itself is not moderate.”
No one has said “all Muslims” are “immutable adherents to a death cult”.
In 1933 when the Nazi party took control of Germany it had 2 million members, comprising only three percent of Germany’s sixty-six million citizens. A tiny minority of extremists can control a vast number of moderates, making them irrelevant.
- Daniel Pipes
Maybe I’m missing something here. I mean, we’re going to have kind of a nation-building corps from America? Absolutely not. Our military’s meant to fight and win war. That’s what it’s meant to do. And when it gets overextended, morale drops. But I’m going to be judicious as to how to use the military. It needs to be in our vital interest, the mission needs to be clear, and the exit strategy obvious.
- George W. Bush
MB4 on December 18, 2007 at 11:14 PM
Did you miss the recent reports of the Iraqi Government disarming Iraqi police women trained with a lot of American time and American $$$? They seem to be going in the wrong direction again.
MB4 on December 18, 2007 at 11:17 PM
MB4,
The majority of Iraqis, and most Muslims as well, are moderate and have rejected the indiscriminate violence of the Takfiris. They’ve been a major component of our success in beating Al-Qaeda in Iraq.
Iraq will be a model to both the West and the Middle East that a free, democratic, Muslim-majority state is possible.
Jason on December 19, 2007 at 12:43 AM
“Free” and “democratic” to do what?
And when, the day after I fly like Superman?
MB4 on December 19, 2007 at 1:13 AM
It’s hard to be optimistic for the region, with one step forward, and 2-10 backwards. I was totally for the removal of Saddam, and especially for the demise of the monsters of his sons. What followed is so disheartening and, much as I wish for them to be free and whatever ‘democratic’ means for them, I’ve given up on them. Some just can’t be helped. However, I believe that we’ll be there for longer than in Germany/Japan/Korea, for reasons other than their well-being.
Entelechy on December 19, 2007 at 2:04 AM
That same majority voted in political representatives who enshrined a special place for Sharia law in the Iraqi Constitution. In what theological sense is the violence in Iraq takfir? (i.e. forbidden)
Yeah, me too.
aengus on December 19, 2007 at 4:38 AM
Supposing for a moment this is true and a ramshackle Iraqi democracy takes hold. Is this a model likely to be followed by other Muslim-majority states without direct US military intervention?
aengus on December 19, 2007 at 4:41 AM
I’ve been in these arguments a million times, and yes, we all know how you feel. But it’s an analytical flaw to apply strict theological analysis to every situation involving the Muslim world, something which you do to every situation. Islam may prove more or critically problematic to establishing relatively liberal Democracy, but relative to what? What they had before? Or what we have? As it is, I’m optimistic for something reasonable coming out of Iraq. Look at the Kurds, who are Muslim and flourishing politically and economically.
I’m not going to get into this specific argument with you for more comments, because you’ve got your gameplan and you’re sticking to it. And it’s largely subjective anyway.
Where I do feel then need to argue with you is here:
You see any step backwards, pounce and extrapolate, much like the mainstream media. I’m not going to argue that the US is going to leave Iraq a Western utopia, but incremental change is possible and happening. Right now there is a senior cabinet member in Maliki’s government who is a woman, equivalent to Dr. Rice. So it’s not all backwards misogyny, the society is a little more complicated.
Except your analogy falls apart in two areas:
1. Not all Germans self-identified as Nazis, so they didn’t flip out when Naziism was eradicated.
2. There are over 1 billion Muslims spread across many societies, hence the concept of eradicating the ideology like Naziism, versus it adapting, is as pie-in-the-sky unrealistic as Hillarycare.
So while American soldiers on the ground put there nose to the grindstone and try to influence a lot of the negativity in that part of the world and construct something better, you throw your hands up and what, want to build a moat around the United States?
It’s not an unreasonable position for you to be skeptical, but I think you take it to the nth degree.
BillINDC on December 19, 2007 at 8:52 AM
Whatever they want. That’s what being free means.
You gave up too soon.
Yes. Certainly much more likely with Iraq for a model than they would have been without it.
Jason on December 19, 2007 at 9:12 AM
Flanders: “I guess we’ll just have to agree to disagree.”
Homer: “I don’t agree to that.”
aengus on December 19, 2007 at 10:08 AM
Oh and one last thing, if democracy in the Middle East is still American Foreign policy why have the Realists in the Bush Administration thrown Lebabon to the Syrian wolves. A Cedar Revolution betrayed?
aengus on December 19, 2007 at 10:13 AM
aengus: They haven’t, and no. There is a middle ground between war and ‘throwing them to the wolves’, called soft power and diplomacy. In addition to diplomacy, a democratic Iraq is also helping Lebanon.
Jason on December 19, 2007 at 12:48 PM
Why only 12,000 when the Iraqi army needs manpower and there are 50,000 more recruits to be had? For the obvious reason, I’m sure — because the Shiite government’s worried about absorbing too many Sunnis too quickly and risking wholesale sectarian balkanization within the forces
I get the impression it’s mostly just bureaucracy, turf wars and general government lethargy/incompetence.
Ask yourself this: if the U.S. government wanted to vet and hire 12,000 police, how long would it take? And our government has been around 200 years; theirs formed 2 years ago.
I’m sure Bill’s piece will be enlightening, though, as he’s actually been there (btw Bill, might want to check out Totten’s kerfuffle with Glenn Ellers Wilson Greenwald).
TallDave on December 19, 2007 at 6:08 PM