It sounded pretty reckless from the moment the first reports from the Anbar province hit the wires. And it's not as if there's been a shortage of influential people eager to caution against the strategy. Yet it looks as if the Department of Defense, based upon short-term gains in Anbar, is taking it's plan to arm anti-al Qaeda Sunnis nationwide.
American commanders say they have successfully tested the strategy in Anbar Province west of Baghdad and have held talks with Sunni groups in at least four areas of central and north-central Iraq where the insurgency has been strong. In some cases, the American commanders say, the Sunni groups are suspected of involvement in past attacks on American troops or of having links to such groups. Some of these groups, they say, have been provided, usually through Iraqi military units allied with the Americans, with arms, ammunition, cash, fuel and supplies.
Spencer Ackerman has more.
This was written up in The New Yorker about three months ago. Seemed idiotic then; seems idiotic now. Let's see... Wasn't Saddam a Sunni?
Posted by: matty | June 11, 2007 at 06:09 PM