Sons of Iraq Story

During General David Petraeus’ testimony to Congress on the progress of the war in Iraq, he referred to the great security gains of the last year, which largely hold even in the face of clashes between Shia militias and government forces in Sadr City, Basrah, and much of the South. General Petraeus credited a substantial portion of those security gains in many areas of Iraq in the last year to the duel phenomena of Sahawa (Awakening) councils and the formation of local security teams from out-of-work men fed up with violence.

The Anbar Awakening started in Ramadi as armed opposition to al Qaeda in Iraq. The movement grew and morphed into a political and military movement that expanded throughout Anbar and swept west, north, and south throughout the largely Sunni areas of Iraq. As the Awakening Councils formed, they raised paramilitary security forces with assistance and instruction from the Coalition forces in their respective towns.

In some areas these local security fighters were directly raised and employed by a town’s Awakening Council; in others, local security groups developed on their own without a connection to the Awakening movement. As the trend spread, Coalition commanders began to adopt the local security model to provide jobs and protection for the Iraqi people in their areas.

At the beginning, the names of different security groups were as mixed as the outside opinions of them. The first local security fighters appeared in Ramadi and Fallujah, where cynical soldiers called them the “Good Bad Guys.” As the trend grew, Americans in other areas dubbed groups “Concerned Local Citizens” or “Neighborhood Watch”; Iraqis in Baghdad called themselves “Knights of the Two Rivers.”

Local forces were variously lauded as patriots and vilified as opportunistic militiamen. American civilian leaders and the press worried that the military was “arming both sides in a civil war.” Many military leaders appreciated the extra temporary security, but worried what would happen when the local forces were inevitably asked to stand down in favor of Iraqi government forces.

Almost a year has passed since the rise of the local security forces, which now number more than 91,000. The Government of Iraq refers to all armed groups contracted by the Coalition as “Sons of Iraq” regardless of origin, and has stated the intention of integrating about 20 percent into the security forces and disbanding the rest when they are no longer needed for security.”

Praying for Iraq….
Jenny Hatch