Friday, March 21, 2008

Blowback all over again

Just a day after Bush hailed the success of his 'surge' in Iraq, evidence is emerging that the strategy is failing - and will only fuel sectarian conflict

By Seumas Milne
The Guardian

"Just as George W Bush announces that the surge in Iraq has opened the door to "strategic victory", evidence is emerging that the US-sponsored Sunni militias that have been at the heart of the surge strategy - the so-called "awakening councils" - are already showing signs of falling apart.......

As one sahwa council leader south of Baghdad told Guardian Films: "When the areas started to cool down and the situation began to get better, the Americans really cooled to us. They had got what they wanted from us."

That came as little surprise to other armed groups in Iraq. In January, a leader of one of the largest Sunni-based resistance groups, the 1920 Revolution Brigades, told me: "The sahwa councils are an unhealthy phenomenon, they are being used as a tool by the US occupation forces. But the US is likely to turn against them in the near future - we don't think the sahwa councils will last."......"

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