Outside troops have been dispatched to trouble spots throughout Iraq in a bid to keep a lid on violence in areas where insurgent death threats have rendered the local police ineffective. As a short-term counterinsurgency strategy, such forces have several advantages. First, they and their families are less subject to intimidation than when the forces are in their own area. Also, as Iraqis, they are far more familiar with the territory and less likely to be viewed as occupiers than are U.S. troops.
Yet by pitting Iraqis from different religious sects, ethnic groups and tribes against each other, the strategy also aggravates the underlying fault lines of Iraqi society, heightening the prospect of civil strife, U.S. military analysts said.
In Ramadi, the influx of outside forces totals at least 1,500 troops in five battalions, including Public Order forces and irregular militias such as the 2nd Special Police Commandos and the Defenders of Baghdad, according to U.S. military officials.
U.S. officers say the surge in such external forces is needed to counter the insurgency's immediate grip on Ramadi, the capital of restive Anbar province in the Sunni Triangle, 60 miles west of Baghdad. It is one of Iraq's most dangerous cities, rocked daily by explosions. The city of 400,000 has lacked a functioning local security force since last winter, when the police and Iraqi National Guard disbanded wholesale as insurgents blew up all but one of Ramadi's police stations, the mayor's office and other government buildings.
There are complaints raised in the article that this will spark Sunni resentment and increase sectarian violence.
Give me strength. Why are so many people so worried about Sunni feelings? The Sunnis have done a smash up job increasing sectarian violence with 400 years of dominace, 30 years of Baathist oppression, and two years of beheadings and car bombings. Wasn't blowing up all but one of Ramadi's police stations a little off putting to the Shia majority? I mean, just a little?
This situation may serve as a warning to the Sunnis to get on board or place their future in the hands of the Shias and Kurds. The Sunnis are practically being begged to join the government by the former victims of Sunni Baathist oppression. By refusing this generous offer, the Sunnis are demonstrating that the only role they want in Iraq is their former role of neck stomping, raping, and plundering.
The new Iraqi government needs to reach out to reasonable Sunnis--not nearly all benefited from Saddam's rule--but the government has the right and responsibility to retore order. The Sunnis of Ramadi failed and so somebody has to do it.
Good grief. To accuse our side of pitting one group against another is just ridiculous.
