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Will Sunni's rejoin AQI for the bucks?
BAGHDAD -- The American military marked another milestone the other day in the initiative perhaps most responsible for taming the violence in Iraq: All but 10,000 of the 94,000 Sunni militiamen -- many of them former insurgents who agreed, for cash, to stop killing American soldiers -- had been turned over to the control of the Iraqi military.The same day, one group of the fighters north of Baghdad announced they were resigning from their Awakening Council, the Iraqi name for what the Americans call the Sons of Iraq. And in the town of Salman Pak, councils in southern Baghdad and its suburbs, an area once called "the ring of death," met to denounce Iraqi efforts to integrate them. These are among the signs that the fighters' patience is fraying badly at a difficult moment. After months of promises, only 5,000 Awakening members -- just over 5 percent -- have been given permanent jobs in the Iraqi security forces. Those promises were made last year when Iraq was flush with oil money. Posted by: GolfBravoUSMC 2009-03-24 |
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