An Iraqi soldier opened fire on a U.S. military team Saturday, killing two American soldiers and wounding three, the U.S. military said, in an attack that could sharpen worries about the extent of militant infiltration in Iraq's security forces.
Iraqi officials described the attacker — who was killed in the gunbattle — as a soldier who also served as a Sunni Muslim preacher for his unit near Mosul, which is one of the last urban strongholds for Sunni insurgents.
This is upsetting, to be sure. But it is not a reason to mistrust the Sunni Arabs and target them. The enemy in Iraq wants us to react harshly and mistrust all Sunni Arabs in order to drive them back to fighting us.
This is not the first time something like this has happened in either Iraq or Afghanistan. The purpose of the attack isn't to kill two Americans, it is to sow distrust between our forces and Iraqi forces. While we must continue to be vigilant we can't afford to treat all Iraqi security personnel as potential enemies.
They infiltrate our side. We infiltrate their side. We've had far more success in converting their people to our side. Keep that in mind.
