The US military has embarked on a new and risky strategy in Iraq by arming Sunni insurgents in the hope that they will tackle the extremist al-Qaida in Iraq.
The US high command this month gave permission to its officers on the ground to negotiate arms deals with local leaders. Arms, ammunition, body armour and other equipment, as well as cash, pick-up trucks and fuel, have already been handed over in return for promises to turn on al-Qaida and not attack US troops.
The US military in Baghdad is trying to portray the move as arming disenchanted Sunnis who are rising up in their neighbourhoods against their former allies, al-Qaida and its foreign fighters. But the reality on the ground is more complex, with little sign that the US will be able to control the weapons once they are handed over. The danger is that the insurgents could use these weapons against American troops or in the civil conflict against Shia Muslims. Similar efforts by the US in other wars have backfired, the most spectacular being the arming of guerrillas against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan.
The Pentagon insisted the latest strategy was not recognition that president George Bush's "surge" policy had failed. All of the extra 30,000 US troops ordered by Mr Bush in January to Baghdad and Anbar province, one of the centres of the violence, had only just been fully deployed and it was too early to judge it.
Initial successes of the surge in pacifying parts of Baghdad have now been reversed, with the death toll among US troops and Iraqi civilians last month among the highest since the 2003 invasion.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,2100698,00.html
Bad or Good Idea? Personally I think its an appalling Idea. Arming one side of a waring faction which could quite easily turn on the hand that feeds it. These weapons will harm coalition solders, sooner or later. These Sunni insurgents are as brutal and blood thirsty as al-Qaida and have been active in ethnically cleansing parts of Iraqi.
The US are repeating the same mistakes it made in Afghanistan.
The US high command this month gave permission to its officers on the ground to negotiate arms deals with local leaders. Arms, ammunition, body armour and other equipment, as well as cash, pick-up trucks and fuel, have already been handed over in return for promises to turn on al-Qaida and not attack US troops.
The US military in Baghdad is trying to portray the move as arming disenchanted Sunnis who are rising up in their neighbourhoods against their former allies, al-Qaida and its foreign fighters. But the reality on the ground is more complex, with little sign that the US will be able to control the weapons once they are handed over. The danger is that the insurgents could use these weapons against American troops or in the civil conflict against Shia Muslims. Similar efforts by the US in other wars have backfired, the most spectacular being the arming of guerrillas against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan.
The Pentagon insisted the latest strategy was not recognition that president George Bush's "surge" policy had failed. All of the extra 30,000 US troops ordered by Mr Bush in January to Baghdad and Anbar province, one of the centres of the violence, had only just been fully deployed and it was too early to judge it.
Initial successes of the surge in pacifying parts of Baghdad have now been reversed, with the death toll among US troops and Iraqi civilians last month among the highest since the 2003 invasion.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,2100698,00.html
Bad or Good Idea? Personally I think its an appalling Idea. Arming one side of a waring faction which could quite easily turn on the hand that feeds it. These weapons will harm coalition solders, sooner or later. These Sunni insurgents are as brutal and blood thirsty as al-Qaida and have been active in ethnically cleansing parts of Iraqi.
The US are repeating the same mistakes it made in Afghanistan.
