It’s simple really. Just give his Iraqi security forces anything they want (i.e., show him the weapons!):
BAGHDAD, Iraq – The Iraqi government’s need for U.S. troops would “dramatically go down” in three to six months if the United States sped up the process of equipping and arming Iraq’s security forces, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said Wednesday.
The head of Iraq’s Shiite Muslim-led government defended his country’s independence and sovereignty and called on U.S. leaders to show faith in his ability to lead. […]
One Maliki aide said the prime minister wants “heavier weapons” and is concerned that Iraqi security forces are outgunned by militias and insurgents.
What a great idea. Give the Iraqi forces more arms, better tanks, planes and attack helicopters, bombs and missiles and — whatever it takes. Maliki promises this will not only let his Government stand on it’s own two swaggering feet, but it would allow us (as in our troops) to stand down. I wonder why Bush hasn’t implemented this before now? Hmmm …. Could it be he doesn’t really trust Maliki to do the right thing if he did give him what he most desires?
(cont.)
Bush administration officials have long expressed concern in private over delivering military equipment to Iraq because of uncertainty that it would be kept out of the hands of militia members, common criminals and insurgents.
Maybe that’s because they are well aware of who really stands behind, and provides the principle political support for, Maliki as Prime Minister in the current Iraqi government:
You can spot them by their black outfits and black balaclavas. Members of the Mahdi Army, the 10,000-strong militia formed by Muqtada al-Sadr shortly after the April 2003 invasion of Iraq, are now deemed responsible for many of the sectarian killings in recent months. The army’s loyalists primarily consist of unemployed Shiites from Sadr City, a Baghdad slum. Several have infiltrated the ranks of the interior and defense ministries. Like Hamas or Hezbollah, the Mahdi Army fills a security void. It is increasingly drawing support from local Iraqis fed up with the government’s—not to mention outside powers like the United States’—inability to police their streets (WashPost) and provide basic services.
Yet Sadr’s army is not just a gang of thugs, experts say. Sadr controls a large voting bloc in parliament. His loyalists mounted a formidable offensive last week and briefly took control of the southern city of Amara (Reuters). As this new Backgrounder explains, the government has been unable—or rather unwilling—to disband the militia because Nuri al-Maliki, the embattled prime minister, relies on Sadr for political support. Balancing Sadr’s bitter feud with Abdul Aziz al-Hakim (al-Jazeera), another prominent Shiite leader whose Badr Brigade has often clashed with the Mahdi Army, has been the key to holding his combustible government together. Maliki can ill afford to alienate conservative Shiites like Sadr or Hakim, yet Washington has pressed the prime minister to disband and disarm these leaders’ militias.
That’s right, Maliki is the monkey in the middle between the two most powerful Shi’a militias. He can promise all he wants that more arms for his government’s putative security forces would allow him to disarm the militias and combat the Sunni insurgents, but can he really deliver? There is every reason to believe he cannot, because the current Iraqi security forces are riddled with militia members as even this article by an American Enterprise Institute (yes that AEI) Scholar acknowledges:
Quite apart from the psychological impact of our actions, there is the sober fact that the Iraqi army is small–only 138,000-strong (and that number probably overstated)–and that building effective security forces takes time. The 188,000-man police forces are corrupt, riddled with militia influence, and in need of a thorough overhaul.
So what is Maliki really hoping for? I suggest that what he really wants is his own “militia” under the name of the “Iraqi Army” which is personally beholden to him and outfitted with better weaponry than any other force in the country possesses, all of which is to be supplied by our Government.
A militia, an army, a military force. Whatever you call it, that is what Maliki hopes would allow him to win the battle for Iraq, not only against the Sunni insurgency, but also his many rivals among the Shi’ites, including Muqtada al Sadr. The trouble is, I don’t see any way in which his competitors would allow that to happen, since they already dominate much of the country, and control the allegiance of a great many among the Shi’a populace, or in the case of the Peshmerga, the Kurds.
Here’s a little more in depth information about the militia situation in Iraq from a publication posted at the website of the Council on Foreign Relations:
There are a growing number of small, homegrown, paramilitary-style brigades being formed by local tribes, religious leaders, and political parties. Many have taken up arms against Iraq’s Sunni insurgents since the February 2006 bombing of a Shiite shrine in Samarra. Larger, more established militias, such as the Badr Brigade and the peshmerga, are tied to Iraq’s leading political parties, organized along sectarian lines, and in existence to enforce order in their respective regions. […]
… U.S. military and intelligence officials say there are at least twenty-three militias in operation, according to the Washington Post. They range in capability and effectiveness, and the majority of them are Shiite. […]
The Mahdi Army, named after a Shiite messianic figure, is a militia of several thousand members loyal to the anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. Most of its membership consists of unemployed, young Shiites from Sadr City and southern Iraqi cities like Najaf… Mahdi followers have infiltrated Iraq’s interior and defense ministries. Some police cars in parts of Baghdad openly display the organization’s insignia. […]
The peshmerga are now believed to comprise some 100,000 troops, and serve as the primary security force for the Kurdistan Regional Government in northern Iraq. Iraq’s Kurds have repeatedly insisted that the peshmerga remain intact as a fighting force as a condition of their remaining loyal to Baghdad instead of seeking an independent state. Kurdish officials have also requested that Iraq’s interim government security forces operate in Iraqi Kurdistan only with the prior permission of the Kurdistan Regional Government. […]
[The Badr Brigade] is the Iranian-trained wing of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), the most powerful Shiite party in Iraq. The organization was built by Iraqi Shiite defectors and soldiers captured by Iran during the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war. Its members were funded, trained, and equipped by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. During the U.S.-led-occupation government’s crackdown on militia groups in 2003, the 10,000-strong militia changed its name from the Badr Brigade to the Badr Organization of Reconstruction and Development and pledged to disarm. The group, however, has remained armed, and today operates mainly in Shiite-controlled southern Iraq, where a number of regional governments are dominated by SCIRI representatives. SCIRI openly advocates the creation of a separate, Shiite-run region comprising nine oil-rich provinces in southern Iraq.
Anyone who believes these groups will just stand idly by while Maliki attempts to create his own military force to counter militia influence is a fool. The most likely outcomes from providing the Iraqi Army with the weaponry that Maliki is seeking would be either (1) an acceleration of the conflict between the various militias (including the Peshmerga) or (2) that the vast majority of these arms would fall into the hands of the main Shi’a militias, the Mahdi Army and the Badr Brigade, who have already infiltrated the Interior and Defense Ministries to such an extent that it would be impossible to prevent them from obtaining the heavy armaments that Maliki is requesting from Bush.
Of course, we could not expect the Sunni insurgency to stand idly by while their sectarian adversaries equipped themselves with the best and latest American military weapon systems. No doubt, Saudi Arabia would increase its current level of funding for the insurgents, allowing them to obtain the arms necessary to combat the increased power of the Shi’a and Kurdish forces arrayed against them.
In short, Maliki’s proposal, if implemented, would merely add fuel to the fire that is already consuming thousands of Iraqi lives each month and causing many more to flee their country. God help us if Bush ever agrees to Maliki’s scheme. Putting more US troops into Iraq is bad enough, but putting more and better weapons into the hands of armed gangs, thugs and “ethnic cleansers” would be even more insane.