With U.S. presence fading in Iraq, ex-militia faces uncertain future

[Duke]

With U.S. presence fading in Iraq, ex-militia faces uncertain future

.By SHASHANK BENGALI

McClatchy Newspapers
BAGHDAD -- Ali al-Ghreri has traded his militiaman's gear for a crisp suit, slick loafers and a rakishly skinny tie. He makes his money now not as a hired gun of the U.S. military but as a contractor overseeing construction projects across Baghdad.

Beneath his polished exterior, however, serious worries stalk al-Ghreri, a leader of the Sunni Muslim Arab militia known as the Awakening, which helped U.S. forces turn the tide against the al-Qaida in Iraq insurgency a few years back.

The government jobs that al-Ghreri's militiamen were promised when Iraqi forces took over security operations two years ago have been slow in coming, the salaries skimpy and irregular. Many in the Shiite-led Iraqi army and police view them with suspicion. Worst of all, their enemies in al-Qaida in Iraq continue to pierce the country's deceptive calm to target them in deadly revenge attacks.

"When responsibility for the Sahwa transferred from the Americans to the Iraqis, we started suffering," said al-Ghreri, using the Arabic word for "awakening" and the common name for the movement.

With Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite Muslim, preparing to form a new government and the U.S. military scheduled to withdraw its remaining troops by the end of 2011, the fate of the Sahwa looms as one of the toughest tests of Iraq's ability to transcend sectarian rivalries and the raw wounds of the civil war.

Few in al-Maliki's government are enthusiastic about the Sahwa, which formed when Sunni tribal leaders and former insurgents rose up in opposition to al-Qaida in Iraq's brutal tactics. When the U.S. military began paying some 95,000 of them upwards of $350 a month in 2007 to provide security in their neighborhoods, many Iraqi officials were skeptical, regarding them as "thugs at best and Sunni terrorists at worst," as the International Crisis Group research agency wrote in a recent report.

"When America started reaching out to Sahwa in 2006 and 2007, basically they were told, 'You're part of Iraq; we want you in the political order,' " said Joost Hiltermann, an Iraq expert with the International Crisis Group. "For them, this (new government) is the litmus test: Are they in or are they out?"

Two years ago, American forces handed over the program to al-Maliki's government, which pledged to integrate 20 percent of the fighters into the security forces and place the rest in government jobs. Iraqi officials say that nearly 40,000 have been employed, but Sahwa leaders argue that many hundreds of former fighters have walked out of their jobs after going months without salaries or because they found the work demeaning.

Now diminished in size, the Sahwa feel more vulnerable than ever, trapped between a government they feel mistrusts them and Sunni insurgents who want revenge. The International Crisis Group reported that about 40 Sahwa leaders were arrested last year on charges that ranged from terrorism to illegal weapons possession, while more than 200 have been assassinated.


Many Sahwa leaders say they regret telling their members to apply for government jobs and wish they'd return to protect their neighborhoods.

"Al-Qaida reactivated when the Americans withdrew," said Sheikh Mahmoud Yaseen, a Sahwa leader in Tarmiyah, a rural area north of Baghdad. Two dozen of Yaseen's fighters have been killed in the years since U.S. forces ceded control of the program

READ THE REST OF THE STORY BY CLICKING ONTOLINK - DUKE1

Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/12/0...#ixzz17T1HAcMD

http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/12/0...g-in-iraq.html