Iraqi Forces Resent Fighting Countrymen

[NNN0LHI]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040417/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_security_forces&cid=540&ncid=1480

FALLUJAH, Iraq - Iraqi security forces fighting alongside Marines in Fallujah are angry, saying they're outgunned by Sunni insurgents and resent being sent to fight fellow Iraqis.


"Eighty percent of us want to leave and go to Baghdad" because they don't want to fight civilians in Fallujah, said Amar Hussein, a medic in the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps.


The 36th ICDC Battalion was supposed to be the elite of the U.S.-trained Iraqi security forces, with members drawn from the militias run by various members of the Governing Council in order to fight insurgents who have been attacking U.S. forces and their Iraqi allies for months.


Now it finds itself involved in the bloody battle of Fallujah, where Marine forces have been fighting insurgents in the city, but where many civilians are also believed to have been killed. Mosques have been targeted by both sides, buildings in residential areas destroyed, soccer fields turned into makeshift graveyards.

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[Cocoa]

1. Bush said he was disappointed in their performance

they better straighten up, I'm sure they don't want to let their savior down.

[stellanoir]

2. on that foggy threshold between sleep and wakefulness this morn. . .

the following thoughts strangely occurred to me . . .

We sent the security forces of this very proud country running in their skivvies a year ago.

We then fired them.

They were unemployed and hungry with basic services barely
provided.

Then we rehired some of them.

Some of them were executed for aligning themselves with an occupying power.

They were disloyal to someone who had been their ubiquitous leader for two decades.

Why on earth would they ever fight their countrymen for our dubious control of their country.

I remembered seeing all those US military uniforms for sale in the "Thieves Market" in Baghdad last night on the "snooze".

Winning the "hearts and minds. . .?" I think not.

Then I rolled over and determined once again, that I really should get a life.

[enough]

3. Very rare to hear an actual Iraqi voice in U.S. media

snip>

The Fallujah siege has become a rallying point for anti-U.S. sentiment among Iraqis and their countrymen in the 36th Battalion are feeling conflicted.


"I feel there are very few terrorists in Fallujah, but because of the way the Americans are treating the civilians, we are creating more and more terrorists every day," Firaz Munshed, a Shiite in the force, said Friday.


"If they did this in Sadr City, I would fight the Americans too," he said, referring to the mostly Shiite neighborhood of Baghdad where U.S. forces have been trying to put down the militia of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

snip>

[NNN0LHI]

4. I just hope our own soldiers feel the same way if it ever comes to this

History is not on our side though unfortunately.

Don