Have you read about THIS?

Question

‘We have made a deal with the devil’

For a while, part of the administration’s war policy in Iraq was disarming sectarian militias. Now, U.S. forces are trying a different tack — the opposite tack.
The US military has embarked on a new and risky strategy in Iraq by arming Sunni insurgents in the hope that they will tackle the extremist al-Qaida in Iraq."

"The US high command this month gave permission to its officers on the ground to negotiate arms deals with local leaders. Arms, ammunition, body armour and other equipment, as well as cash, pick-up trucks and fuel, have already been handed over in return for promises to turn on al-Qaida and not attack US troops.
Apparently, U.S. forces have not only aligned themselves with dozens of Sunni militiamen, we’re now cooperating with sectarian militias, working outside the Iraqi security forces, that include insurgents that have attacked Americans in the past. What’s more, we’re allowing them to procure weapons and we’re granting them the power to arrest other Iraqis."

“We have made a deal with the devil,” said an intelligence officer in the battalion.

"The dynamic is not without complications. Joshua Partlow’s report explained that “fighters on both sides appeared nearly identical,” using the same weapons and wearing similar clothes. “Now we’ve got kind of a mess on our hands,” a leader of a U.S. Stryker team remembered thinking. “Because we’ve got a lot of armed guys running all over the place, and it’s making it very hard for us to identify which side is which.”
Might these militias turn on the U.S. sometime soon? No one knows. Ali Hatem Ali Suleiman, a Sunni militia leader said, “Let’s be honest, the enemy now is not the Americans, for the time being.” (emphasis added)

What could possibly go wrong?"

EDIT:
Didn't you like the part where he says, "the American is not the enemy FOR THE TIME BEING?"

The lunatics are in charge of the insane asylum.

Answer 1

The Republicans have been making arms deals with the Arabs all a long to continue the sale of weapons. It is the Republicans Capitalism at work. Bush has no intention of pulling out from the Middle East, ever!!! He wants it all to stay a cluster Fvck, so he and his buddies make billions. Ronald Reagan sold weapons to Osama Bin Laden to fight against the USSR. The US supplies weapons to the Israelis. Rumsfeld sold weapons to Saddam while serving in the Reagan/Bush Administration. Reagan traded weapons to Iran for hostages to get elected a second term. Look at the Iranian Air Force and see all of the F-14 Navy Tom Cat's that are equipped with heat seeking introcet missiles. I will post a link as a source: http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/iran/airforce.htm
http://www.aerospaceweb.org/question/planes/q0077.shtml
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_Republic_of_Iran_Air_Force
Heckova Job Dubya!!!

Answer 2

Let's see....the Sunnis, the Sunnis. That sounds kind of familiar.
Ohhh, now I remember! The Sunnis were in charge when SADDAM was Iraq's leader!
Good Lord. So we go in, destroy the nation of Iraq, cause untold death and destruction, and now we want the same people that we displaced to regain the power.
What's wrong with this picture?

Answer 3

Heard this last night on the news for the first time. Nothing is ever learned, and it's all the worse when single-minded desperation trumps strategy. After all, Bin Laden and Saddam were BOTH American clients before they became our nemeses... or were they ALWAYS our nemeses, using the US better than the US used them?

We're creeping ever closer to another un-selfconsious iteration of, "We had to destroy the village in order to save it."

Answer 4

DAMN!!! This has got to be MUCH worse than Vietnam! Not only that, but I can't help but imagine that even if the Sunni insurgents got rid of al-Qaeda and gained power, who's to say that they wouldn't even become a threat to US national security, as well? What a f*cking mess!

Answer 5

No I have not read it and I try to pay attention to the news and everything. I am not going to judge them but say that the decisions that they make while their in Iraq mean their lives they need to choose wisely for themselves and the men or they will end up in the mouth of a crocodile, theletically speaking.

Answer 6

Arming insurgents to fight someone else.......
That sounds familiar.......

Oh yea, that's what we did for OBL when Al Qaida was fighting the soviets in Afghanistan.

That dog couldn't possibly turn around and bite us in the butt again.

Morons that ignore history are doomed to repeat it.

Answer 7

sourced for the righty losers......

For U.S. Unit in Baghdad, An Alliance of Last Resort

By Joshua Partlow
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, June 9, 2007; Page A01

BAGHDAD, June 8 -- The worst month of Lt. Col. Dale Kuehl's deployment in western Baghdad was finally drawing to a close. The insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq had unleashed bombings that killed 14 of his soldiers in May, a shocking escalation of violence for a battalion that had lost three soldiers in the previous six months while patrolling the Sunni enclave of Amiriyah. On top of that, the 41-year-old battalion commander was doubled up with a stomach flu when, late on May 29, he received a cellphone call that would change everything.

"We're going after al-Qaeda," a leading local imam said, Kuehl recalled. "What we want you to do is stay out of the way."

"Sheik, I can't do that. I can't just leave Amiriyah and let you go at it."

"Well, we're going to go."

The week that followed revolutionized Kuehl's approach to fighting the insurgency and serves as a vivid example of a risky, and expanding, new American strategy of looking beyond the Iraqi police and army for help in controlling violent neighborhoods. The American soldiers in Amiriyah have allied themselves with dozens of Sunni militiamen who call themselves the Baghdad Patriots -- a group that American soldiers believe includes insurgents who have attacked them in the past -- in an attempt to drive out al-Qaeda in Iraq. The Americans have granted these gunmen the power of arrest, allowed the Iraqi army to supply them with ammunition, and fought alongside them in chaotic street battles.

To many American soldiers in Amiriyah, this nascent allegiance stands out as an encouraging development after months of grinding struggle. They liken the fighters to the minutemen of the American Revolution, painting them as neighbors taking the initiative to protect their families in the vacuum left by a failing Iraqi security force. In their first week of collaboration, the Baghdad Patriots and the Americans killed roughly 10 suspected al-Qaeda in Iraq members and captured 15, according to Kuehl, who said those numbers rivaled totals for the previous six months combined. He is now working to fashion the group into the beginnings of an Amiriyah police force, since the mainly Shiite police force refuses to work in the area.

"This is a defining moment for us," said Kuehl, who commands the 1st Battalion, 5th Cavalry Regiment, attached to the 1st Infantry Division.

But aligning Americans with fighters whose long-term agenda remains unclear -- with regard to either Americans or the Shiite-led government -- is also a strategy born of desperation. It contradicts repeated declarations by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki that no groups besides the Iraqi and American security forces are allowed to bear arms. And some American soldiers worry that standing up a Sunni militia could have dire consequences if the group turns on its U.S. partners.

"We have made a deal with the devil," said an intelligence officer in the battalion.

The U.S. effort to recruit indigenous forces to defend local communities has been taken furthest in Anbar province, where tribal leaders have encouraged thousands of their kinsmen to join the police. In the Abu Ghraib area, west of Baghdad, about 2,000 people unaffiliated with security forces are now working with Americans at village checkpoints and gun positions.

Kuehl said he recognizes the risks in dealing with an unofficial force but decided the intelligence that the gunmen provided on al-Qaeda in Iraq was too valuable to pass up.

"Hell, nothing else has worked in Amiriyah," he said.

Answer 8

Conservatives armed Saddam Hussein in the first place. This should come as no surprise.

There is good reason Saddam named his Palace, "Republican Palace" and his elite guards, "Republican Guards"...

Answer 9

yes condi rice supported this months ago its just now being made public, its our way of stirring the pot of dissent the israelis intelligence ave been playing palestinians against each other for years, rumsfeld did it when he gave saddam hussein chem weapons to use against iran

Answer 10

I haven't heard about this. Cite your source. If is true is not ideally good nor perfect but is what might work at this time. At war we can't afford to have scruples, the enemy of my enemy is my friend. We live by that. Though, I'm against the war I find that our options to end this aren't exactly good but we have to take it.