BAGHDAD — Come Oct. 1, the Iraqi government will take over responsibility for paying and directing the Sunni-dominated citizen patrols known as Awakening Councils that operate in and around Baghdad, U.S. and Iraqi officials said Monday.
The handover will involve 54,000 Awakening members paid by the U.S. military to guard neighborhoods or, in some cases, simply to refrain from attacking U.S. and Iraqi forces.
Once the transfer takes place, the Iraqi government will have “full administrative control” of the Awakening cadres, said a U.S. military official who asked to remain anonymous because he was not authorized to speak publicly on the subject.
It was not clear whether the Iraqi government, which is dominated by Shiites, had given the Americans or the Awakening forces assurances about how long, or even whether, it would keep the patrols intact. Some senior Iraqi officials have expressed reservations about paying armed Sunni militias, which draw from the ranks of former insurgents.
Awakening members have complained in turn that the Iraqi government has been far too slow in making good on promises to bring them into the Iraqi security ranks.
The New York Times
