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Paramilitary battalion us legitimising militias { December 4 2003 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1099461,00.htmlhttp://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1099461,00.html
Security unit to be run by Iraqi parties
US plan for new force criticised as legitimising militias
Julian Borger in Washington
Thursday December 4, 2003
The Guardian
The US is planning to set up a paramilitary battalion in Iraq drawn from the five main political parties to help American troops fighting a fast-spreading insurgency, it was reported yesterday.
News of the plan drew criticism from independent Iraqi political figures who argued that the party-based militias would undermine the country's long-term stability.
According to the plan reported by the Washington Post, quoting US and Iraqi officials, the counter-insurgency battalion would be up to 850-strong, operate within the Civil Defence Corps, chiefly in Baghdad, and would be made up largely of fighters provided by parties which have backed the occupation.
The parties involved are Ahmad Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress (INC), the Iraqi National Accord (INA), the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK).
If set up, the battalion would mark a sharp change in direction from a plan announced earlier this year by the INA, responsible for security in the interim governing council, to set up a force 10 times as strong, and drawn largely from local Sunni tribes. Critics of the occupation regime have complained that the Sunni tribes in central Iraq are not represented in the governing council or the ministries. Drawing on the five parties, which principally represent former exiles, Kurds and Shi'ites, is likely to increase Sunni isolation.
"It's a mistake not to bring in the Sunnis and they should find a way to do it," Michael O'Hanlon, a military expert at the Brookings Institution in Washington, said yesterday.
He was "cautiously supportive" of the plan in principle, but argued that the battalion's companies would have to be integrated to avoid reinforcing sectarian divisions.
Ghazi Yawar, an independent member of the governing council, declared the plan a "blunder". He told the Washington Post: "We should be dissolving militias, not finding ways to legitimise them. This sends the wrong message to the Iraqi people."
A Pentagon official said she could not confirm or deny the reports, but pointed out that the US sought to expand Iraq's new Civil Defence Corps from 12,700 to 40,000.
The five parties have long expressed frustration at the lack of Iraqi involvement in the counter-insurgency effort, and have argued that their militiamen have better knowledge of local conditions than American troops. US officers, initially reluctant to approve such a force, have come under more pressure since a deal last month between the chief American administrator, Paul Bremer, and the governing council, to end the occupation by July 1 next year.
The parties have argued that the police and civil defence force have neither the training nor the equipment to take the offensive against the insurgents, believed to be largely Saddam Hussein loyalists.
Ayad Alawi, the INA leader, has said the five parties "all have people who are much better suited to fight Ba'athists and terrorists."
US-led occupation forces are coming under attack more than 30 times a day. With few other countries willing to contribute troops, the Pentagon has stepped up attempts to build a home-grown security force.
Yesterday's report suggested the plan remained "fluid", but it quoted a senior US military officialas saying: "We're moving forward with it."
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