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View Full Version : U.S. Arming Sunnis in Iraq to Battle Old Qaeda Allies



jetdawgg
06-11-07, 10:58 AM
By JOHN F. BURNS and ALISSA J. RUBIN
BAGHDAD, June 10 — With the four-month-old increase in American troops showing only modest success in curbing insurgent attacks, American commanders are turning to another strategy that they acknowledge is fraught with risk: arming Sunni Arab groups that have promised to fight militants linked with Al Qaeda who have been their allies in the past.

American commanders say they have successfully tested the strategy in Anbar Province west of Baghdad and have held talks with Sunni groups in at least four areas of central and north-central Iraq where the insurgency has been strong. In some cases, the American commanders say, the Sunni groups are suspected of involvement in past attacks on American troops or of having links to such groups. Some of these groups, they say, have been provided, usually through Iraqi military units allied with the Americans, with arms, ammunition, cash, fuel and supplies.

American officers who have engaged in what they call outreach to the Sunni groups say many of them have had past links to Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia but grew disillusioned with the Islamic militants’ extremist tactics, particularly suicide bombings that have killed thousands of Iraqi civilians. In exchange for American backing, these officials say, the Sunni groups have agreed to fight Al Qaeda and halt attacks on American units. Commanders who have undertaken these negotiations say that in some cases, Sunni groups have agreed to alert American troops to the location of roadside bombs and other lethal booby traps.

But critics of the strategy, including some American officers, say it could amount to the Americans’ arming both sides in a future civil war. The United States has spent more than $15 billion in building up Iraq’s army and police force, whose manpower of 350,000 is heavily Shiite. With an American troop drawdown increasingly likely in the next year, and little sign of a political accommodation between Shiite and Sunni politicians in Baghdad, the critics say, there is a risk that any weapons given to Sunni groups will eventually be used against Shiites. There is also the possibility the weapons could be used against the Americans themselves.

American field commanders met this month in Baghdad with Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top American commander in Iraq, to discuss the conditions Sunni groups would have to meet to win American assistance. Senior officers who attended the meeting said that General Petraeus and the operational commander who is the second-ranking American officer here, Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, gave cautious approval to field commanders to negotiate with Sunni groups in their areas.

One commander who attended the meeting said that despite the risks in arming groups that have until now fought against the Americans, the potential gains against Al Qaeda were too great to be missed. He said the strategy held out the prospect of finally driving a wedge between two wings of the Sunni insurgency that had previously worked in a devastating alliance — die-hard loyalists of Saddam Hussein’s formerly dominant Baath Party, and Islamic militants belonging to a constellation of groups linked to Al Qaeda.

Even if only partly successful, the officer said, the strategy could do as much or more to stabilize Iraq, and to speed American troops on their way home, as the increase in troops ordered by President Bush late last year, which has thrown nearly 30,000 additional American troops into the war but failed so far to fulfill the aim of bringing enhanced stability to Baghdad. An initial decline in sectarian killings in Baghdad in the first two months of the troop buildup has reversed, with growing numbers of bodies showing up each day in the capital. Suicide bombings have dipped in Baghdad but increased elsewhere, as Qaeda groups, confronted with great American troop numbers, have shifted their operations elsewhere.

The strategy of arming Sunni groups was first tested earlier this year in Anbar Province, the desert hinterland west of Baghdad, and attacks on American troops plunged after tribal sheiks, angered by Qaeda strikes that killed large numbers of Sunni civilians, recruited thousands of men to join government security forces and the tribal police. With Qaeda groups quitting the province for Sunni havens elsewhere, Anbar has lost its long-held reputation as the most dangerous place in Iraq for American troops.

Now, the Americans are testing the “Anbar model” across wide areas of Sunni-dominated Iraq. The areas include parts of Baghdad, notably the Sunni stronghold of Amiriya, a district that flanks the highway leading to Baghdad’s international airport; the area south of the capital in Babil province known as the Triangle of Death, site of an ambush in which four American soldiers were killed last month and three others abducted, one of whose bodies was found in the Euphrates; Diyala Province north and east of Baghdad, an area of lush palm groves and orchards which has replaced Anbar as Al Qaeda’s main sanctuary in Iraq; and Salahuddin Province, also north of Baghdad, the home area of Saddam Hussein.

Although the American engagement with the Sunni groups has brought some early successes against Al Qaeda, particularly in Anbar, many of the problems that hampered earlier American efforts to reach out to insurgents remain unchanged. American commanders say the Sunni groups they are negotiating with show few signs of wanting to work with the Shiite-led government of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki. For their part, Shiite leaders are deeply suspicious of any American move to co-opt Sunni groups that are wedded to a return to Sunni political dominance.

With the agreement to arm some Sunni groups, the Americans also appear to have made a tacit recognition that earlier demands for the disarming of Shiite militia groups are politically unachievable for now given the refusal of powerful Shiite political parties to shed their armed wings. In effect, the Americans seem to have concluded that as long as the Shiites maintain their militias, Shiite leaders are in a poor position to protest the arming of Sunni groups whose activities will be under close American scrutiny.

But officials of Mr. Maliki’s government have placed strict limits on the Sunni groups they are willing to countenance as allies in the fight against Al Qaeda. One leading Shiite politician, Sheik Khalik al-Atiyah, the deputy Parliament speaker, said in a recent interview that he would rule out any discussion of an amnesty for Sunni Arab insurgents, even those who commit to fighting Al Qaeda. Similarly, many American commanders oppose rewarding Sunni Arab groups who have been responsible, even tangentially, for any of the more than 29,000 American casualties in the war, including more than 3,500 deaths. Equally daunting for American commanders is the risk that Sunni groups receiving American backing could effectively double-cross the Americans, taking weapons and turning them against American and Iraq’s Shiite-dominated government forces.

Americans officers acknowledge that providing weapons to breakaway rebel groups is not new in counterinsurgency warfare, and that in places where it has been tried before, including the French colonial war in Algeria, the British-led fight against insurgents in Malaya in the early 1950s, and in Vietnam, the effort often backfired, with weapons given to the rebels being turned against the forces providing them. Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, commander of the Third Infantry Division and leader of an American task force fighting in a wide area between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers immediately south of Baghdad, said at a briefing for reporters on Sunday that no American support would be given to any Sunni group that had attacked Americans. If the Americans negotiating with Sunni groups in his area had “specific information” that the group or any of its members had killed Americans, he said, “The negotiation is going to go like this: ‘You’re under arrest, and you’re going with me.’ I’m not going to go out and negotiate with folks who have American blood on their hands.”

One of the conditions set by the American commanders who met in Baghdad was that any group receiving weapons must submit its fighters for biometric tests that would include taking fingerprints and retinal scans. The American conditions, senior officers said, also include registering the serial numbers of all weapons, steps the Americans believe will help in tracing fighters who use the weapons in attacks against American or Iraqi troops. The fighters who have received American backing in the Amiriya district of Baghdad were required to undergo the tests, the officers said.

The requirement that no support be given to insurgent groups that have attacked Americans appeared to have been set aside or loosely enforced in negotiations with the Sunni groups elsewhere, including Amiriya, where American units that have supported Sunni groups fighting to oust Al Qaeda have told reporters they believe that the Sunni groups include insurgents who had fought the Americans. The Americans have bolstered Sunni groups in Amiriya by empowering them to detain suspected Qaeda fighters and approving ammunition supplies to Sunni fighters from Iraqi Army units.

In Anbar, there have been negotiations with factions from the 1920 Revolution Brigades, a Sunni insurgent group with strong Baathist links that has a history of attacking Americans. In Diyala, insurgents who have joined the Iraqi Army have told reporters that they switched sides after working for the 1920 group. And in an agreement announced by the American command on Sunday, 130 tribal sheiks in Salahuddin met in the provincial capital, Tikrit, to form police units that would “defend” against Al Qaeda.

General Lynch said American commanders would face hard decisions in choosing which groups to support. “This isn’t a black and white place,” he said. “There are good guys and bad guys and there are groups in between,” and separating them was a major challenge. He said some groups that had approached the Americans had made no secret of their enmity.

“They say, ‘We hate you because you are occupiers’ ” he said, “ ‘but we hate Al Qaeda worse, and we hate the Persians even more.’ ” Sunni militants refer to Iraq’s Shiites as Persians, a reference to the strong links between Iraqi Shiites and the Shiites who predominate in Iran.

An Iraqi government official who was reached by telephone on Sunday said the government was uncomfortable with the American negotiations with the Sunni groups because they offered no guarantee that the militias would be loyal to anyone other than the American commander in their immediate area. “The government’s aim is to disarm and demobilize the militias in Iraq,” said Sadiq al-Rikabi, a political adviser to Mr. Maliki. “And we have enough militias in Iraq that we are struggling now to solve the problem. Why are we creating new ones?”

Despite such views, General Lynch said, the Americans believed that Sunni groups offering to fight Al Qaeda and halt attacks on American and Iraqi forces met a basic condition for re-establishing stability in insurgent-hit areas: they had roots in the areas where they operated, and thus held out the prospect of building security from the ground up. He cited areas in Babil Province where there were “no security forces, zero, zilch,” and added: “When you’ve got people who say, ‘I want to protect my neighbors,’ we ought to jump like a duck on a june bug.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/11/w.../11iraq.html?hp (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/11/w.../11iraq.html?hp)


No wonder AQ may be whom we are up against now. I don't know how smart this is. Once again this admin has shown itself not to be on the ball. They do get help from the democrats now though

HOLM
06-11-07, 12:48 PM
You are really un ****** believable jet...


Didn't we start this conversation in another thread... and Out of all the chit you looked at you posted this garbage... What is wrong with you?

The New York Slimes is a day late and a dollar short with that BS

More typical liberal garbage... Nothing good to say about anything but the enemy...






http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0503/p01s04-wome.html

http://washtimes.com/world/20070217-123319-5645r.htm

http://www.heritage.org/Research/MiddleEast/wm1443.cfm


http://www.kuwaittimes.net/read_news...d=ODA3ODA0ODY4 (http://www.kuwaittimes.net/read_news.php?newsid=ODA3ODA0ODY4)

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/i...q-friday_N.htm (http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2007-06-01-iraq-friday_N.htm)

jetdawgg
06-11-07, 01:03 PM
With a below sea level approval, I would like to see this admin provide something for us to cheer about

HOLM
06-11-07, 01:33 PM
Your congress maintains a lower aproval rating. So that is a really really counterproductive arguement...


We are all Marines here... We can always find something to ***** about..


Sometimes we have to knock that chit off though...


America has ALWAYS disliked its war time leaders.. Wilson got both barrels for WW1.. FDR was disliked for even preparing for a Nazi attack.. Truman... Yeah.. The "uneducated" president that couldn't give a speech to save his life... and was notorious for saing stupid chit...

Lincoln .. If you read only the press from the 1860's you would be suprised the North even had chance to win the war given all the "mistakes" Lincoln made..


Polk.. Yeah they didn't like his ass either...


In fact... Name a president that the country liked during any war...



So shut you cock holster.. and Start acting like a Marine.. Your endless *****ing about something that IS going to continue is really wearing me and the rest of the country thin.. The democrats cut and ran from their cut and run stategy..

So unless you have a way to really fix this thing.. Quit *****ing.. We are all more than aware mistakes have been made... SO frign what.. Watch as I pull a 10 z here.. ;)


"There is not in all America a more dangerous trait than the deification of mere smartness unaccompanied by any sense of moral responsibility."


Teddy Roosvelt Abilene, KS, May 2, 1903



We made... UMMM Bill Clinton set out a huge responsibilty for us when he extended our services and support to the peace loving citizens of Iraq.. We now have no choice but to keep this responsibilty that we assigned ourselves to...



"Criticism is necessary and useful; it is often indispensable; but it can never take the place of action, or be even a poor substitute for it. The function of the mere critic is of very subordinate usefulness. It is the doer of deeds who actually counts in the battle for life, and not the man who looks on and says how the fight ought to be fought, without himself sharing the stress and the danger.




"It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat."
- Theodore Roosevelt
"Citizenship in a Republic"
Speech at the Sorbonne, Paris, April 23, 1910

jetdawgg
06-11-07, 01:38 PM
I agree with what you stated here. I am a Marine. Mr. Cheney is the one who dodged his responsibility and is a leading proponent of the war effort(?) in Iraq.

Most Americans want out of there. So you are off point there

HOLM
06-11-07, 01:44 PM
Most Americans want out of there. So you are off point there

That is what McGovern thought too... Americans want to win... That doesn't mean that they want out without achieveing what we set out to do...


Watch as I pull a 10z again





"Men, this stuff that some sources sling around about America wanting out of this war, not wanting to fight, is a crock of bull****. Americans love to fight, traditionally. All real Americans love the sting and clash of battle. You are here today for three reasons. First, because you are here to defend your homes and your loved ones. Second, you are here for your own self respect, because you would not want to be anywhere else. Third, you are here because you are real men and all real men like to fight. When you, here, everyone of you, were kids, you all admired the champion marble player, the fastest runner, the toughest boxer, the big league ball players, and the All-American football players. Americans love a winner. Americans will not tolerate a loser. Americans despise cowards. Americans play to win all of the time. I wouldn't give a hoot in hell for a man who lost and laughed. That's why Americans have never lost nor will ever lose a war; for the very idea of losing is hateful to an American."

jetdawgg
06-11-07, 01:48 PM
Yes Americans want to win, but not at a cost of 500BB and counting along with 3500+ American lives and 30K wounded.

Needless to mention the Iraqi civilian deaths and displacements....

poolarnold
06-11-07, 02:22 PM
not to be disrespectful....but if americans dont want to fight why are there 50 + poolees going 1 weekend a month to the pool functions at my RSS and are all eager to go to bootcamp and then off to iraq to fight....and by the way i live in New York....

killerinstinct
06-11-07, 02:48 PM
well doesnt sound bad to me i personally think we should let them kill each other like taking ants from one pile and putting them on another.

Sgt Leprechaun
06-11-07, 03:09 PM
Quite honestly, I don't see a big issue here. Isn't this what we WANT to happen.....the Iraqi 'people' themselves taking up the fight?

If anything, the headline should read "Surge working as more flock to the colors" or some such.

jetdawgg
06-11-07, 03:20 PM
Quite honestly, I don't see a big issue here. Isn't this what we WANT to happen.....the Iraqi 'people' themselves taking up the fight?

If anything, the headline should read "Surge working as more flock to the colors" or some such.

surge working? If you are an arms dealer

drumcorpssnare
06-11-07, 03:25 PM
Sgt.Leprechaun- Dude...what are you thinking??? You should know by now, that the liberal Dems would absolutely forbid the words "surge" and "working" to be side by side, in print, in this country!
In fact, if by some miracle, the Iraqi people stepped forward tomorrow...and said, "We're ready ! Turn our country back over to us. Thank-you for your sacrifices. You can go back to America now." You KNOW the Dems would throw a major cry-baby tantrum, and they would scramble didligently, looking for any new reason to bash Bush.

drumcorpssnare:usmc:

jetdawgg
06-11-07, 03:35 PM
5MM Iraqi refugees. Immigration is a problem over there now too.

The surge is just another name for the 'meat grinder' that this debacle has become.

FOX Noise does not report the war anymore so that headline will not appear.

Even they could not show something so farce. I guess now they have a limit:usmc:

Sgt Leprechaun
06-11-07, 03:38 PM
Drum, good one as always.

I think Fox reports what needs to be reported. Unlike the other outfits, who report 'all bad all the time', Fox isn't stupid.

I love it how the media is now whining that Fox (probably the most pro-war channel out there) isn't 'reporting' on it enough, but yet, the public says they don't trust the 'regular' media in THEIR reporting of it.

Hilarious.

Where are you getting the "5 million" refugee number, BTW?

kato811
06-11-07, 03:46 PM
How long do you think it will take for this great plan to blow up in our marines faces? whos thinking this **** up in washington?

jetdawgg
06-11-07, 03:59 PM
Drum, good one as always.

I think Fox reports what needs to be reported. Unlike the other outfits, who report 'all bad all the time', Fox isn't stupid.

I love it how the media is now whining that Fox (probably the most pro-war channel out there) isn't 'reporting' on it enough, but yet, the public says they don't trust the 'regular' media in THEIR reporting of it.

Hilarious.

Where are you getting the "5 million" refugee number, BTW?

SGT Lep, there are those threads about the FOX Noise Channel I posted. I find there "news" content extreme.

The link about the refugees:

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article2640418.ece

FOX is not pro war, they are pro republican/conservative party. Except for Ron Paul

jetdawgg
06-11-07, 04:00 PM
How long do you think it will take for this great plan to blow up in our marines faces? whos thinking this **** up in washington?

Thinking? In Washington?

That bunch just fired Gen Pace....:usmc: and now this.....

Sgt Leprechaun
06-11-07, 04:14 PM
I thought all the lefties supported the firing of General Pace? Heck, he was an 'architect' of the war strategy and a Rumsfeld appointee.

I do believe we are trying to 'have our cake' and eat it too.....

jetdawgg
06-11-07, 04:18 PM
Not sure about 'all the lefties'. Maybe a few homos. I supported Gen Pace as he was the first Marine JCS (Long Overdue imo).

He also was a major voice in keeping us out of Iran. Gen Pace protected the troops as best he could while still attemtping to balance his 'politics' due to his posititon.

Tough job as it now shows.

Sgt Leprechaun
06-11-07, 04:20 PM
Oh, yeah, that's right. Those of the limp wristed persuasion were less than happy with General Pace. Who, BTW, I also supported as the first Marine JCS.

kato811
06-11-07, 09:40 PM
its funny how our CIC will stand behind our AG forever . but he wont do the same for General Pace. I think the reason is the General isn't a Bush kind of person. that being a YES MAN . The General is more of a man than any of our white house crew could ever hope to be.He said what he thought and dint care if it was what the administration thought he should say. For that i salute him.