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| Iraq |
| Iraq's Awakening: Two tales illustrate force's birth and slow death |
| 2009-04-28 |
| They were unlikely comrades in arms: the security guard and the stockbroker who stepped out of the shadows of the insurgency to fight Al Qaeda in Iraq. Abu Maarouf, wiry and good with a gun, headed a hit squad and waged a tribal rebellion against insurgents who had turned the revolt against the Americans into a brutal, thuggish affair. Abu Azzam, heavyset and fond of tailored suits, led secret talks with the Americans that helped forge an alliance with the U.S. military in Abu Ghraib, the no man's land between Baghdad and Fallouja. The story of Abu Maarouf and Abu Azzam offers a rare window into the birth and slow death of the Sons of Iraq, the U.S.-backed corps of Sunni fighters who helped end the country's civil war. Today, Abu Maarouf is on the run, hunted by the Iraqi army and the group Al Qaeda in Iraq. Afraid of midnight raids and ambushes, he sleeps some nights in irrigation ditches. Many say it's a miracle he's still alive. His old cohort Abu Azzam spends his days inside the blast walls of the hermetic Green Zone in meetings with officials from Prime Minister Nouri Maliki's office. The divergent fates of these two former Sunni insurgents highlight the major unknown about the intentions of Iraq's Shiite-led government: Is it reaching out to former Sunni insurgents such as Abu Azzam in the true spirit of "national reconciliation," or in hopes of splintering the movement? And will the government's campaign against men such as Abu Maarouf succeed in snuffing out potential rivals? Or is it planting seeds for a long-term Sunni revolt? The crackdown also points to a significant change in the U.S. forces' onetime policy of nurturing and protecting the Sons of Iraq. As the Iraqi government has arrested some of the movement's leaders, forced others into exile and failed to deliver jobs for rank-and-file fighters, the Americans have regularly deferred to Baghdad's wishes as they hand over responsibility for the country's security. "I worked with the American forces very hard, but in the end they pushed me aside. That's what they've done," Abu Maarouf said on a recent day in his home village of Alrifoosh, not far from where hooded gunmen once patrolled. He worried that fighters, angry over the government's actions, might now be open to joining Al Qaeda in Iraq. The Americans, who once wrote the paychecks for 100,000 fighters with the militias, say their hands are tied. "We are just walking on eggshells. We are afraid we are going to violate the security agreement," a U.S. military officer said on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject. Publicly, military spokesmen point to an Iraqi government commitment to find jobs for the fighters, but breeze over the recent pattern of arrests and the fact that there is only one year of funding to absorb the Sons of Iraq into state jobs, with no guarantees those jobs will exist after 2009. "They [the government] are breaking the back of these organizations," the U.S. officer said. "They are going after the key leaders, and once they eliminate the key leaders, the members will drift away. The problem is some of them will drift back to their old groups." |
| Posted by:GolfBravoUSMC |
| #1 The problem is that Al-Maliki's Dawa party is the smallest of the 3 Shia parties in parliament. The other two are closer to Iran and much less commited to "reconciliation" and more committed to revenge. If Al-Maliki wants to hold his coalition together, he's going to have to hold off on helping the Sunnis until the elections are over. |
| Posted by: Frozen Al 2009-04-28 14:29 |