The crux of the surge, as proposed, was that Iraqi police and military forces would clamp down on the sectarian militias, disarming or killing those that resisted. The U.S. military was merely to act in a "support role". That idea was tossed out early on, and the "benchmarks" that the surge was supposed to allow the Iraqi government to achieve hadn't materialised by September, either.
The biggest putative success of the surge has come from something that was never proposed back in January 2007: the Awakening Councils, or the Sahwa, as they are called in Iraq. Also very helpful, but also not in the Decider's keen vision in 1/07, has been the freeze on militant activity by the Sadrists. The Mahdi Army's hope was that the other militias would exhaust themselves in the surge and the Sadrists would remain the most powerful after the smoke cleared. The U.S. repaid Sadr's restraint by spending months arresting Sadrists and consigning them to the black hole of the Iraqi prison system where torture is commonplace. Rather than the other militias exhausting themselves, they largely coalesced into the Sahwa and took their pay from the U.S. while openly expressing disloyalty to the Iraqi government.
Thus, the Bush Administration has created a huge parallel military within Iraq that circumvents the corrupt, ineffective, and thoroughly-infilitrated Iraqi National Police and Army. While the Sahwa are nominally allied with the U.S. forces, they are loyal to their own sectarian interests first and foremost. And the inherent weakness of this arrangement is becoming clearer. As the Sahwa become the real power in the areas where they have been the most effective, they are now challenging the Iraqi Police and Army for control. And the Administration's hopelessly optimistic scheme of "transitioning" the Sahwa into the regular Iraqi forces has stalled and is coming apart.
The (mostly Sunni) Sahwa have become the targets of the (mostly Shia) government forces. Both sides see the Americans as siding with the other party in this conflict. And we are now seeing weekly "friendly-fire" deaths of the Sahwa forces at the hands of the Americans. At some point, Bush will have to back one side or the other, and the "gains" of the surge will evaporate.
Since September, it's become more obvious that the Administration is chiefly interested in a fatal blow to Al-Qaeda, and the idea of a stable Iraqi government has been relegated to the very back of the back burner. Seemingly every day, multiple corpses are post-humously dubbed as "Al-Qaeda" simply by virtue of their deaths, based on nothing more than a senior officers desire to rack up numbers. For all of the "progress", provincial elections remain a mirage. That sacred act of voting that Bush invoked as one of his ever-shifting rationales for American forces to remain seems to have faded from importance. When Bush proposed the surge, the Iraqi government was expected to take control of all the provinces by last November. That became April, and now nobody is saying anymore when it will happen. Bush no longer is interested in a stable Iraqi government; it's all about Al-Qaeda now. And Al-Qaeda is somehow driven from Iraq, where will they go? Somalia or Afghanistan, one would suppose. Is that better? It doesn't matter, because Bush would be able to claim "victory" by creating the same situation someplace else.
story from IPS
IRAQ: A New Force Called Sahwa Shows Its Muscle
By Ahmed Ali and Dahr Jamail*
BAQUBA, Feb 13 (IPS) - The Awakening Councils in Diyala province are stepping up their protests against the government in Baghdad.
The Awakening Councils, or the Sahwa as they are called, are a mostly Sunni Muslim force set up by the U.S. to draw in resistance fighters into their ranks, and then to help U.S. forces fight other anti-U.S. groups.
The Sahwa have been engaged in growing conflict with the largely Shia Muslim forces of the Iraqi government.
The new conflict was sparked off by the rape and murder of two Sunni women, allegedly by members of Shia militia that are backed by the government. The Sahwa in Diyala province, just north of Baghdad, have been demanding dismissal of police chief Major General Ghanim al-Qureyshi.
"We demand the resignation of Qureyshi because he is sectarian, and every crime against Sunnis has been committed in his knowledge," Sahwa leader Abu Qutaiba told IPS. "We also want to put the issue of prisoners on the table of debate. Their cases should be reviewed by fair people. All prisoners were arrested on the basis of sectarian information."
Qutaiba added, "Prisons are filled with Sunnis while Shias enjoy jobs, power and authority. We blame Americans for relying on false Shia information, which serves the sectarian appeal and Iranian agenda. We want the truth to see the sun."
The government, far from rebuking the provincial police chief, has given him a promotion.
Following a demonstration led by Sahwa members Feb. 8, Qureyshi said people do not want to demonstrate. All that had happened was that some people carrying protest banners had joined others leaving a mosque in Tahreer district after prayers.
Following this, Sahwa members led another rally Saturday, hoisting banners that said 'Today is Saturday'. Other protest rallies followed.
On Feb. 11, hundreds of Sahwa fighters demonstrated again in Baquba, 40 km northeast of Baghdad, demanding dismissal of Qureyshi, a Shia. The protesters threatened they would quit their jobs as neighbourhood guards if this was not done. Many have already left their posts in protest. Sahwa members are paid 300 dollars monthly by the U.S. government.
The demonstrations have drawn in people from all around Iraq's volatile Diyala province. The streets have filled with people hoisting protest banners. The Sahwa here want to show they are a power that Baghdad cannot ignore.
A rally last Sunday led to armed clashes between Iraqi police and Sahwa members, in which three policemen were killed.
Abu Haider al-Katib, spokesman for the 1920s Revolution Brigades, the largest of the Sahwa components, told reporters that if their demands were not met, they would "take up arms" against the police "and U.S. troops if they support the police."
"We want jobs, that have been denied to Sunnis," Abu Haider, another Sahwa leader in the city told IPS. "Americans and the Prime Minister (Nouri al-Maliki) promised that members of the Sahwa would be included as permanent Iraqi security forces. People want us to be official forces because they trust our seriousness in protecting our province. We restored life to streets and made people feel safe again."
So far only 10 percent of nearly 80,000 Sahwa members have been admitted into training for police and army jobs.
A member of a local Sahwa, referring to himself as Abu Noor, told IPS that their demands also included "an end to the licentious behaviour of the sectarian police.
"From the time the militants left the streets, the police have behaved badly. We want the police and army to respect people. We want all Iraqis to feel that they are of great value in their country."
The police, he said, "do not show this bad behaviour in the Shia districts of Baquba like Khirnabat and Hwaider."
The Sahwa are clearly gaining respect and power in areas like Baquba -- a phenomenon which threatens the government, and its army and police forces.
"The majority of the new police and army are ignorant," retired teacher Abu Yarub told IPS. "They do not know how to read and write. The Americans will see how big a disaster they put us in when they allowed Iranians to establish the new police and army. This province refuses to be ruled by Iranians or their fellows."
(*Ahmed, our correspondent in Iraq's Diyala province, works in close collaboration with Dahr Jamail, our U.S.-based specialist writer on Iraq who travels extensively in the region) (END/2008)
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