U.S. Military Urging Iraq to Rein In Guard Force(linked to Sectarian Violence)

[maddezmom]

Service Set Up by Coalition Provisional Authority Is Linked to Sectarian Militias and Death Squads

By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, December 25, 2006; Page A11

U.S. military commanders in Iraq are attempting to get under control the Facilities Protection Service, whose 150,000 members are paid to guard the 26 Iraqi ministries and serve as personal security to ministers and important government officials, but also provide manpower for sectarian party militias and death squads.

The Iraq Study Group highlighted the problem earlier this month, describing members of the FPS, an Iraqi force, as having "questionable loyalties and capabilities," and quoting an unnamed senior U.S. official saying they are "incompetent, dysfunctional and subversive."


Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr controls the ministries of health, transportation and agriculture, and FPS units employed by those ministries are "a source of funding and jobs for the Mahdi Army," his militia, according to the study group report.

The latest Defense Department report on Iraq said there is "anecdotal evidence" that FPS personnel "are unreliable and in some cases responsible for violent crimes and other illegal activities." It also described a survey done at the Central Bank of Iraq, which found that of the bank's 1,800 FPS guards, "800 failed to show for work, suggesting that they were either ghost employees or otherwise unfit for such employment."

more:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/24/AR2006122400551.html

[Lasher]

1. Now I understand why we had to cut back on food stamps

It's so we can afford to pay militia members to kill us.

So a Shiite cleric, complete with his own army, controls the health, transportation, and agricutlure ministries. Looks like victory is almost complete if the goal was to set up an islamic fundamentalist state in Iraq.

[Kagemusha]

2. Not nearly complete. But that's hardly the point

Sure, they got out of handing Sadr stuff like Defense and Interior, like that was gonna stop him. Just because health, transportation and agriculture seem "civilian" and innocent doesn't mean they can't be used like branch offices for the faith. Very large branch offices.

[Lasher]

3. And we have been training Iraqi police & military so they can stand up.

But they have been going back to their militias after we train them. Then they're standing up to fight us. Or even worse, they're staying in the Iraqi police & military units where they take orders from Sadr or some other militia leader.

[Kagemusha]

4. They're not fighting us nearly as much as they could.

Not the Shiites. Not since Sadr got begged to enter the political process - and did, gaining even more power under the "even worse" scenario you just mentioned.