Center for a New American Security

Another good story on the Iraqi government's campaign to crack down on the Sons of Iraq in the LA Times. The piece also confirms the June 2009 date Dr. iRack noted on Thursday for the complete handover of the program to the Iraqi government. According to LTC Jeffrey Kulmayer, the coalition officer in charge of overseeing the SoI program: "Our goal is that by June 2009, the Sons of Iraq are out of business." According to the LAT, BG Dave Perkins, the MNF-I spokesmen, claims that Maliki is "well aware of the sacrifices the Sons of Iraq have made, that they were a critical element in bringing the security situation under control and that it is in their strategic advantage to assimilate them peacefully and orderly into Iraqi society." But Perkins' boss--Petraeus--is complaining about Iraqi government stalling.

Meanwhile, the government is arresting and chasing off SoIs in Diyala and, now, Abu Ghraib, and Haidar Abadi, a lawmaker from Prime Minister Nouri Maliki's Dawa Party quoted in the LAT piece, makes it clear that Maliki and his allies are very reluctant to accommodate these guys: "The ones [SoIs] in Baghdad and Diyala province just changed their T-shirts. There are large numbers who were really Al Qaeda. We have to really look hard for those elements without blood on their hands." (See also this NYT piece.)

Mounting evidence seems to support this conclusion from CFR's Steve Biddle: "We want to have our cake and eat it too, support Maliki and the Sons of Iraq. . . . Maliki wants to make that as hard for us as possible. He wants us to choose him."

And in the context of the emerging SOFA timeline, the United States seems increasingly likely to make this choice by next summer. The LAT quotes Mullah Shihab Safi, the commander of the SoIs in Baqubah, who notes:

"We don't know what our stance will be if other things happen from the security forces, the Iraqi government or the Americans," Safi said. He recognizes that things have changed with his U.S. allies. "The Americans have made their compromises. They want the Iraqi central government authority to prevail, so they can withdraw to their bases."

Indeed.

Update: From the AP:

Iraq's government is grateful to U.S.-allied Sunni fighters but won't allow them to keep their weapons indefinitely, the prime minister said Saturday, hinting at a more intense crackdown on the Sunni groups. . . .

In a speech to Shiite tribal leaders in Baghdad on Saturday, al-Maliki mixed praise for the Sunni fighters with a warning. He said armed groups, alongside security forces, were tolerated for a limited period because their weapons were "aimed at the chests of the terrorists."

"So they (the Sunni fighters) deserve our gratitude and the inclusion (into the security forces) because we adhere to a policy that there are no arms but the arms of the government," he said.