U.S. Plans to Form Job Corps For ("former insurgents") Iraqi Security Volunteers

[sabra]

Source: WP

Shiite-Led Government's Slow Hiring of Sunnis Prompted Change

BAGHDAD -- The U.S. military plans to establish a civilian jobs corps to absorb tens of thousands of mostly Sunni security volunteers whom Iraq's Shiite-dominated government has balked at hiring into local police forces.

The new jobs program marks a sharp departure from one of the most highly touted goals of the so-called Sunni awakening, which was to funnel the U.S.-paid volunteers, many of them former insurgents, into Iraq's police and military.

President Bush and Gen. David H. Petraeus, the U.S. commander in Iraq, have said the volunteers have played a major role in the recent downturn in violence and would provide a key element of local security as U.S. forces draw down. Plans to reconfigure the program raise new questions about the permanence of security and political structures the United States has sought to impose on Iraq.

The Bush administration has described the hiring of the volunteers by police forces as proof that Iraqis are beginning to reconcile sectarian differences. Yet the government here has shown only grudging interest in the program, despite constant U.S. pressure.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/06/AR2007120602548.html

[Turbineguy]

1. If you can't beat them.....

It seems that many of these people have joined the insurgency because they lost their job in the war and have lots of spare time and little left to lose..

[ck4829]

2. Supporting former insurgents which the government doesn't like

Why do I have a feeling that this will end up similarly to situations of the Mujahideen in Afghanistan or Saddam in the 80's?

[grytpype]

3. We're paying the Sunnis to not attack us.

Which is fine as long as it lasts, but what happens when we stop paying them?