Bush Supported ‘Awakening Councils’ Filled With Iraqi Insurgents

The Sunni rebels battling the U.S. occupation of Iraq have used Bush’s wishful thinking about al-Qaeda to their advantage. Bush-Supported ‘Awakening Councils’ Filled With Iraqi InsurgentsBy Cliff Montgomery – Mar. 26th, 2008For the last several months, George W. Bush and his uniformed mouthpiece, Gen. David Petraeus, have called the program which recruits several thousand Sunnis into American-financed “Awakening Councils” a skillful move of Iraq strategy, deftly reducing sectarian war through “bottom up reconciliation”.The idea behind this maneuver–like much else in this false war of Iraq–stems from the Bush Administration’s delusion that al-Qaeda is Iraq, and Iraq is al-Qaeda.It’s stated ad infinitum that the group al-Qaeda in Iraq has a definite tie to the similarly named al-Qaeda run by Osama Bin Laden–the group which attacked America on Sept. 11th, 2001, and which is based along the porous Afghan-Pakistani border. The Bush White House also continues to link Bin Laden’s al-Qaeda with Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.But like most else in his disguised fruitless nation-building of that country, Bush’s claims are based on outright lies and denials of reality.First, let’s point out that the group al-Qaeda in Iraq is “a mostly homegrown, though foreign-led, Sunni-based insurgency. Experts question how closely–or even whether–the group is connected to the international [Sunni Islamist] al-Qaeda network,” according to a recent Associated Press (AP) story.Then there is the continued bald-faced lie that al-Qaeda and Hussein’s Iraq’s were somehow one and the same.An article published by McClatchy Newspapers on Mar. 18th stated that when in Iraq recently, “Vice President Dick Cheney…defended the toppling of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein as part of the struggle against terrorism following the 9/11 attacks” on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center.The problem with that claim was clearly stated by McClatchy papers.This month, a complete Defense Department-sponsored study of over “600,000 Iraqi documents captured during the 2003 U.S. invasion found no evidence that Saddam’s regime had any operational links with the al-Qaida terrorist network,” declared the McClatchy article.The result of these lies and obvious distortions? The Sunni rebels battling the U.S. occupation of Iraq have used the Bush Administration’s wishful thinking about al-Qaeda to their advantage.Iraqi Sunni groups supposedly form into these American-backed “Awakening Councils” to pursue “al-Qaeda.”But these councils only serve to reduce American military pressure on Sunni rebels who join the units, while allowing the insurgents to establish new political bases from which they may reign down attacks on both U.S. and Iraqi Shi’ite forces.Many questioned this Bush-backed strategy from the start, correctly declaring that these Awakening Councils–collectively named “Sahwa” in Arabic–soon would become a refuge for Sunni insurgents.Top American officers released public statements last year assuring Iraqis that former Sunni insurgents would not be placed in the Sahwa.  But this February, leading officials of the Shi’ite-dominated Iraqi government–including Iraq Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki–began speaking of Sahwa “infiltration” by Sunni insurgents.American commanders at first denied these charges. But at a press briefing on Feb. 17th, Rear Adm. Gregory Smith acknowledged that individual Sunni rebels may have infiltrated a few Awakening Councils. But he rejected the notion that a “complete unit” of the Sahwa could have gone “bad”.But by the last months of 2007, the “Awakening Councils” clearly were often little better than Sunni insurgent groups masquerading as al-Qaeda hunters. And American specialists had little choice but to admit it.A brief history of the Sahwa group The 1920 Revolution Brigades reveals this truth nicely.The 1920 Revolution Brigades is a top Sunni armed resistance unit; it also serves as the main Sahwa presence in Diyala Province, and in sections of Anbar Province as well.Abu Marouf, a leader of the Brigades, brought into the Anbar Sahwa 13,000 of his extremist militiamen. His history as an insurgent leader is common knowledge among Iraqis in the area,  but has not yet been admitted by U.S. officials.What is known is that the 1920 Revolution Brigades continues to battle U.S. troops.In March 2007, the Brigades declared its formation of two individual military “corps”. One corps, the “Iraqi Hamas”, primarily was created to continue attacks on American troops in Sunni provinces like Diyala.The 1920 Revolution Brigades did abstain from joining a new “political council of the Iraqi resistance,” which was formed in October 2007 to unite the various Sunni insurgent groups combating the U.S. occupation.It at least did not join that Sunni insurgent council under its ‘official’ name.”But the Iraqi Hamas ‘wing’ of the organization, which continues to be affiliated with the parent organization, did join the new council,” declares Inter Press Service, a worldwide liberal news service.Like what you’re reading so far? 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