BAGHDAD — Iraq’s Shiite-led government declared Saturday that, after restive areas are calmed, it will disband Sunni groups battling Islamic extremists because it does not want them to become a separate military force.
The statement from Defense Minister Abdul-Qadir al-Obaidi was the government’s most explicit declaration yet of its intent to eventually dismantle the groups backed and funded by the United States as vital tools for reducing violence.
The Awakening movement, a predominantly Sunni Arab force recruited to fight Sunni Islamic extremists like al-Qaeda in Iraq, has become a great success story after its spread from Sunni tribes in Anbar province to become an ad-hoc armed force of 65,000 to 80,000 across the country in less than a year. The movement has been widely credited with turning around violence-scarred areas. But the Awakening’s rapid expansion — the Americans say the force could reach 100,000 — is creating new concerns.
How, when thousands are joining each month, can spies and extremists be reliably weeded out? How can the members’ loyalty be maintained, given their tribal and sectarian ties, and in many cases their insurgent pasts? And — crucially — how can the movement be sustained once the Americans turn over control to a Shiite-dominated government?
Despite the successes of the movement, including the members’ ability to give rebuilding efforts a new chance in war-shattered communities, the U.S. military acknowledges that it is also a high-risk proposition.
It is an experiment in counterinsurgency warfare that could contain the seeds of a civil war — in which, if the worst fears come true, the United States would have helped organize some of the Sunni forces arrayed against the central government on which so many U.S. lives and dollars have been spent.
In interviews with Awakening groups in 10 locations — four interviewed by The New York Times during a week in Anbar, and six groups in and around Baghdad interviewed over several days — it was evident that the groups were improving security in their areas. But it was also clear that there is little loyalty, in either direction, between the Sunni groups and the Shiites who run the government.
The Americans are haunted by the possibility that Iraq could go the way of Afghanistan, where Americans initially bought the loyalty of tribal leaders only to have some of them gravitate back to the Taliban when the money stopped.
Col. Martin Stanton, chief of reconciliation and engagement for the Multinational Corps-Iraq, said the military had no illusions about the Awakening members’ former lives or the reasons for what appeared to be their change of heart.
“These weren’t people who were struck by a lightning bolt or saw a burning bush and came over to this side of the Lord,” Stanton said. “These were people who last year were being hammered from two different directions: by al-Qaeda and by us. It was probably a distasteful choice to make back then because, after all, they viewed us as invaders, and they probably still do, but it was a survival choice, and they made it.”
At a news conference Saturday in Baghdad, al-Obaidi said, “We completely, absolutely reject the Awakening becoming a third military organization.”
He added that the groups would also not be allowed to have any infrastructure, such as a headquarters building, that would give them long-term legitimacy.
The government has pledged to absorb about a quarter of the men into the predominantly Shiite-controlled security services and military and provide vocational training so that the rest can find jobs. Integration would also allow Sunnis to regain lost influence in the key defense and interior ministries.
“We’ve kicked al-Qaeda out, and we don’t want chaos to take their place,” said Sheik Hate Ail, a tribal leader who helped form one of the groups in the western province of Anbar.
He added that the government should not “brazenly exploit the sacrifices of these Iraqi” fighters and “should absorb these people, not reject them and send them away.”
The government has been vague about its plans, and the interior ministry has agreed to hire about 7,000 men so far on temporary contracts and plans to hire an additional 3,000. But the ministry has neither specified the length of the contracts nor the positions the men would fill.
The Sunni irregulars have contributed to a 60 percent drop in violence in the last half of the year, along with the infusion of thousands of U.S. troops and a six-month cease-fire by firebrand Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.
Thousands of Baghdad residents took advantage of the newfound sense of security Saturday to leave their homes in droves and pack the capital’s parks and amusement rides.
“I wish peace and prosperity to our beloved country Iraq and hope all our brothers, sons and families who live abroad come back and God willing, during the next Eid all Iraqis will come together and peace, security and brotherhood will prevail,” Abdul Jabbar Kadhim, an employee at the Dora oil refinery, told AP Television News as he played with his children in a riverside park.
The Associated Press and The New York Times contributed to this report.
