How the new US strategy could turn sour.

Not only could the Sunnis eventually turn against the US again but almost certainly this will bring conflict with the Shia majority and perhaps even Shia militia. It seems a recipe for continued sectarian conflict.


Dark side to the Iraq plan as the Sunnis turn
September 8, 2007

Some insurgents have changed sides, which is good for US troops, but perhaps not so good for the Iraqi Government, writes David Wood.



The US strategy of a "bottom up" revolt of Iraqi Sunnis against al-Qaeda extremists is risky and already riddled with problems, say senior American officers and General David Petraeus's own top counterinsurgency adviser.

Fed up with al-Qaeda's campaign of murder and intimidation, Sunni tribal elders and insurgents who had been fighting alongside al-Qaeda and attacking American troops began last year to quit that fight and temporarily align themselves with US forces. The movement, which began in the western desert province of al-Anbar, has since spread to other predominantly Sunni provinces and some Sunni neighbourhoods in Baghdad, contributing to a significant decline in violence there.

Taken by surprise that an estimated 30,000 Sunnis are shifting from fighting Americans to co-operating with them, US officials nevertheless have seized on the change as the most positive development in the Iraq war, and say it will be a major element in the Petraeus report to Congress on Monday and Tuesday.

But the sudden growth of armed Sunni security forces amid Iraq's sectarian conflict carries "significant" risks for the US and the Shia Government of the Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, says Australian David Kilcullen, who just completed a tour as the top counterinsurgency adviser to the US command in Iraq.

Writing in the online magazine, Small Wars Journal, Kilcullen warns that these Sunni groups could become independent power bases in a fracturing Iraq, or may turn against the Baghdad Government. Echoing the concerns of senior commanders, Kilcullen concludes: "It is clear that the tribal revolt could still go either way."

Kilcullen, an Australian soldier seconded to the US State Department, says the new Sunni security forces might help stabilise Iraq if the US helps enforce strict controls on them, requiring that they swear allegiance to the Iraqi Government, recording their fingerprints and retina scans for identification, providing advisers and trainers and developing programs to disarm them.

The Sunni security forces, depending on their location and skills, are paid and provided some training by US commanders and eventually may be authorised to carry their own weapons, "for defensive purposes only", says Lieutenant-Colonel Joseph Yoswa, a spokesman for the US command in Baghdad. "We don't give them weapons, we don't give them ammunition," he says.

Even with such safeguards, Kilcullen concludes that: "This will play out in ways that may be good or bad, but are fundamentally unpredictable."

In newspaper interviews earlier this year, Sunni tribal leaders who had been assassination targets of al-Qaeda stressed that their alliance with US Marines was critical for their own safety. They said that this temporary alliance against al-Qaeda did not mean they intend any reconciliation with the Shia Government in Baghdad, which they said is dominated by "Iranians".

Encouraging the growth of what are essentially friendly Sunni militias runs counter to what has been a four-year US effort to consolidate power in Iraq's central Government and emasculate tribal power bases and sectarian militias.

For that reason, the "bottom-up" revolt won't be measured by any of the 12 benchmarks that are meant to gauge the security and political performance of Iraq's Government. These benchmarks were the subject of an independent evaluation this week by the US Government Accountability Office. It said the al-Maliki Government failed to meet most of the 18 benchmarks set this year by Congress as a condition for funding of the war.

But beyond the benchmarks, several recent assessments have provided a sobering context for the rise of Sunni security forces.

Iraq's 25,000 national police, who are 85 per cent Shia, are widely viewed as corrupt and infiltrated by insurgents and Shia militants, according to testimony on Thursday by the retired General James Jones, a former Marine Corps commandant who headed a congressional commission examining Iraq's security forces.

The police ought to be disbanded and reorganised, Jones told the Senate Armed Services Committee. He said the Interior Ministry, which controls police, is "crippled" by sectarianism and corruption.

But on the bloody streets of Baghdad and elsewhere, the appearance of armed Sunni citizens' groups has been welcomed by US commanders. The groups are driving out terrorist cells and enforcing "neighbourhood watch" programs to guard against infiltration by Shia insurgents.

Major-General Rick Lynch, the commander of the 3rd Infantry Division fighting south of Baghdad, says he has put to work 10,000 Sunni "concerned citizens", who are manning checkpoints and performing other security functions. But he and other commanders have run into problems convincing the Iraq Government to accept these Sunnis into the regular Iraqi army and police forces. Only 1500 of his 10,000 volunteers have been accepted, Lynch says.

Supporting armed Sunni citizens groups was like "a sharp stick in the eye of the Shia," retired Major-General John Batiste, who commanded the Army's 1st Infantry Division in Iraq, told the joint panel at the committee hearing. Such groups "could become a liability if they turned against the Shiite militias or even Iraqi government forces," the former defence secretary William Perry testified.

The Washington Post

Copyright © 2007. The Sydney Morning Herald.