The Clashes In Iraq

Like most things in that country, the truth is layered like a credit default swap. Maybe the Awakening council engaged in mayhem since 2008 was a rogue exception, and needed to be reined in. It's certainly encouraging that 150 members will be enrolled in the national security forces (although that pledge warrants follow-up). But the distrust between Awakening members and the Maliki government is very close to the surface:

Criticism of the events in Fadhil continued to pour in from other members of the Awakening movement. “We made their hot places cold, but now the government’s making them hot again,” said Mustafa Kamel, leader of the council in Dora and Arab Jabour, both areas that saw particularly heavy fighting previously. Many people were skeptical of the charges against Mr. Mashhadani. “He’s one of us,” said Abu Zain, a deputy leader of a small council in Adhamiya, another Sunni area that was formerly an insurgent bastion. “This is the beginning, we don’t know what will happen next,” he said, adding that many of their fighters worried about being arrested themselves.

Meanwhile, in Mosul:

A policeman was killed by a roadside bomb, the head of a local government district was killed by a group of gunmen outside city offices, another roadside bomb killed two Iraqi soldiers, an unidentified sniper shot and killed a policeman, gunmen killed two people, and an insurgent and an Iraqi Army soldier were killed in a shootout at a checkpoint, according to police accounts. In addition, the medical examiner reported that two bodies were found in Mosul.

This is with 140,000 US troops still in the country.

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