Iraqi peace strategy on verge of collapse RAW STORY

Published: Thursday August 21, 2008





Print This Email This The Iraqi government has failed to absorb tens of thousands of militia members, each promised employment by the US government, endangering a key strategy for pacifying the country.



Iraqi groups known as the Awakening Councils have been a powerful US ally, using their sway with the people to chip away at the insurgency's ranks. Former insurgents who've joined the councils are given $300 a month and the hope of future employment with the Iraqi government.



However, very few of the 100,000+ militia members have been employed, says a recent report by McClatchy newspapers.



"'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.'"



"'All the Americans are doing is paying them just to be quiet,' said Haider al Abadi, a leading member of Maliki's Dawa political party and the head of the economic and investment committee in the parliament. The Iraqi government, he said, can't 'justify paying monthly salaries to people on the grounds that they are ex-insurgents.'"



According to US officials, the Iraqi government never agreed to employ any more than 20 percent of the militia members. A sum of $150 million has been set aside by the Iraqi government for training militia members in vocational skills, though the number only reflects a small portion of the Maliki administration's growing surplus.



McClatchy notes that over 100,000 Iraqi militia members are on the US government's payroll. Unless these men are given a more stable employment, they remain a "long-term threat."



"If they only take a portion of them it's possible they will return to their insurgent ways," said a senior intelligence analyst in the report.



Excerpts from story:



####



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.



READ THE REST.



