Iraqi soldiers man a checkpoint near the site of a road side bomb explosion which destroyed a U.S. humvee Saturday April 22, 2006, in Baghdad, Iraq. U.S. and Iraqi officials are hoping that a national unity government representing Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds will be able to quell both the Sunni-led insurgency and bloody Shiite-Sunni violence that has raged during the political uncertainty. (AP Photo/Khalid Mohammed)This doesn't look too good. This is from Yahoo News:
BAGHDAD, Iraq - U.S. troops aren't just training Iraqi forces, they're also keeping an eye on them, watching for signs they could be moonlighting in the Shiite death squads that target Sunnis.
Bound and tortured bodies — both Sunni and Shiite — turn up every day in the capital, dumped in the streets. Sunni Arabs say their people are the victims of Shiite militiamen who have infiltrated government forces, especially paramilitary commando units of the Shiite-led Interior Ministry.
In Dora, one of the Baghdad's most violent neighborhoods with a mix of Sunnis and Shiites, U.S. troops working with Interior Ministry units say they can feel the Sunni mistrust.
"There's a fear that when (the Interior Ministry) comes in, it may not be on a legitimate mission, unless they're with us," said Lt. Col. Greg Butts, commander of the 2nd Battalion, 506th Regimental Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division that oversees Dora.
Gaining public acceptance of the Interior Ministry commandos, recently renamed the "National Police," has become a priority for U.S. forces. American commanders plan eventually to hand over counterinsurgency operations in large swaths of Baghdad and other cities, including Samarra, to the Interior Ministry as part of the broad effort to move U.S. troops into a background role — and eventually out of
Iraq.
But both U.S. and Iraqi officers say winning public trust will take time.
Suspicion does not run as deeply toward the Iraqi army, a better-trained force controlled by the Defense Ministry, which is run by a Sunni. However, Interior Ministry commandos play a major role in many counterinsurgency operations, especially in the Baghdad area where sectarian tensions run high.
Many Sunnis consider them indistinguishable from Shiite militias.
U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad warned on Sunday that militias form the "infrastructure of civil war" in Iraq. The Iraqi government must incorporate them into its armed forces so that their loyalty is to the state, not their sectarian leaders, he said.
But determining a commando's true allegiance is not easy.
During a recent patrol in Dora, one commando turned on his cell phone to proudly display an image of Muqtada al-Sadr, the radical anti-American cleric. Sadr's powerful Mahdi Army of militiamen is accused by Sunnis of attacking their mosques in retaliation for the Feb. 22 bombing of a Shiite shrine in Samarra, north of Baghdad.
And what is the U.S. doing to fix this problem? You're going to love this:
U.S. trainers are pushing the commandos to move more often into neighborhoods to meet residents and to do goodwill missions, such as trash cleanups.
The commando squads have been renamed the National Police. But a name change likely doesn't resolve much. The Wolf Brigade, possibly the most feared commando unit, was recently renamed the Freedom Brigade. But mention of the commandos still invokes fear and hatred among many Sunni Arabs.
To allay those fears, American soldiers have handed out thousands of cards that encourage residents to call authorities if they see commandos, or fighters posing as commandos, on suspicious missions without U.S. troops.
The calls go directly to U.S. headquarters instead of the Interior Ministry.
I love it! Let's rename one feared commando unit from The Wolf Brigade to The Freedom Brigade--never mind if the commandos are still executing Sunni Arabs. And if you see these renegade Freedom Brigade commandos indiscriminately killing Sunni Arabs, don't fight or try to defend yourself--just dial 911 to the U.S. HQ.
So can you say Vietnam?
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