IRAQ: Payday for some impatient sons

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As a member of the paramilitary force known as the Sons of Iraq, whose foot soldiers man checkpoints and work alongside U.S. and Iraqi troops across Iraq, Surmad Mahmoud Jundi earns $300 a month. As a full-fledged member of the Iraqi police or military, he would get at least twice that, along with extra money for hazardous duty.

It’s no wonder, then, that Jundi is impatient to make the leap from being a Son of Iraq to being a cop of Iraq, and his frustrations were clear as he stood in line under a warm autumn sun to receive his monthly pay. Jundi was one of thousands of Sons of Iraq to be paid by Iraqi officials for the first time this week as the Iraqi government takes command of the force, which had been paid and managed by the U.S. military.

The Iraqi payout, which began Monday in Baghdad, seemed to go smoothly, but the impatience exhibited by Jundi and several other Sons of Iraq is a warning sign of what may lie ahead if the Iraqi government does not fulfill its vow to find jobs for these men.

‘So far all we’ve gotten is promises that we’ll get hired here or there, but nothing,’ said Jundi as other men in line around him joined in the complaints. ‘There’s nothing tangible’ to hold on to for the future, said Younis Abdullah Sukhairi. ‘We don’t have any faith.’ They said they trusted the U.S. forces but not Iraq’s government.

The mutual distrust between the mainly Shiite Muslim government and the mainly Sunni Arab Sons of Iraq is at the root of several problems that could derail the program, which is credited with helping bring down violence nationwide. A year ago, there were about 24 attacks per day on U.S. and Iraqi forces and Iraqi civilians in Baghdad, said U.S. Army Brig. Gen. William Grimsley. Now, there are about four attacks per day, said Grimsley, who called the Sons of Iraq ‘hugely important’ in bringing down violence.

As U.S. troops brought journalists to visit some of the pay stations in Baghdad to witness the historic payout, there were no outward signs of mistrust. The Sons of Iraq stood in orderly lines. They quickly began tucking their shirts into their trousers when they spotted a TV camera. As their names were called, they stepped forward one by one to receive bundles of cash. The biggest problem seemed to be matching names on the Sons’ identity cards with the transliterations of names on lists being kept by U.S. forces overseeing the operation.

‘Say again?!’ an American soldier said to an Iraqi after he’d called out the name of a man waiting to get paid. The American couldn’t find the name on his list. ‘What’s the tribal name?’ he asked. Eventually the name game was sorted out and the man got his money: the equivalent of $300 in Iraqi dinars.

But how long can men be expected to expose themselves to attacks and danger -- at least 79 Sons of Iraq have been killed in Baghdad -- without knowing when they will find permanent work in the Iraqi security forces or other government institutions? That was on the minds of the men waiting to get paid. Even among some Sons already tapped to become Iraqi police, there was the sense that they would not have gotten to that point without U.S. forces prodding the Iraqi government.

Their blunt comments, spoken in front of U.S. forces who were hoping to use this day to show off the success of the hand-over to Iraqi control, were a sign of how deep their wariness runs.

Alla Ghazi, a Son of Iraq undergoing training to become a police officer at an academy in west Baghdad, said it had always been his dream to become a cop. He is among 1,031 Sons of Iraq chosen to attend the academy’s four-week training course. Afterward, he’ll be a cop. Ghazi and Ahmed Moussa were handpicked by U.S. troops to speak to journalists about their transition.

They acknowledged that there had been some fears the Iraqi government would not find jobs for the Sons of Iraq forces. With the ‘help and support’ of U.S. forces, Ghazi said, the Iraqis had come through. But asked if things would have been different without the U.S. ‘help and support,’ Ghazi and Moussa both grinned, shook their heads vigorously back and forth, and said in Arabic, ‘No, no, no.’

‘There’s sort of a double standard,’ said Arkan Mudhir Hamid, echoing others who suspect that because most Sons are Sunni, they will be shut out of good jobs once the Americans finish handing over the program to Iraq’s government.

Nevertheless, U.S. officials heralded the first payday as a milestone. Rather than focusing on lingering distrust, they focused on the declining violence attributed in part to the Sons of Iraq, and on the willingness of the Iraqi government to take on the task of managing the program.

‘None of this is perfect, nor is it smooth, but it works,’ Grimsley said of the handoff. As for the trust issues raised by Jundi and others, Grimsley replied, ‘Nobody said reconciliation was easy.’

-- Tina Susman in Baghdad

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