Iraq Death Squads

Sectarian violence in Iraq has taken on a new dimension. There appears to be a growing number of Shiite police and security officials, beholden to their particular Shiite militias, acting extra-judicially against suspected Sunni insurgents and sympathizers.

"Although no one knows exactly how many militia members have been integrated into the national force, witnesses described undocumented arrests and torture by police. Two of the witnesses said they were present when detainees died. This month, U.S. forces raided a secret Interior Ministry detention facility in southern Baghdad operated by police intelligence officials linked to the Badr Brigade, a Shiite militia that has long-standing ties to Iran and to Iraq's leading Shiite political party. Inmates compiled a handwritten list of 18 detainees at the bunker who were allegedly tortured to death while in custody. The list was authenticated by a U.S. official and given to Justice Ministry authorities for investigation. It was later provided to The Times."

Iraqi security forces have also been infiltrated by members of al-Sadr's Al-Mahdi militia, best known for their two drawn-out engagements with U.S. forces early in the occupation. These two militias are the largest Shiite militias in the country, operating essentially as independent para-military forces whose loyalty lies with their Shiite groups. They are rivalled only by the Kurdish peshmerga, also loyal solely to Kurdish interest in northern Iraq.

This an extremely unfortunate but not at all surprising development in the war in Iraq. As various Sunni and jihadist groups waged their campaigns primarily against the Shiites, and in the absence of a strong national security force, it was only natural that the militias would take on the prominence that they have. And it's only natural now that they have sought to infiltrate the government's undermanned security forces, to work under the guise of governmental legitimacy to pursue campaigns against what they perceive to be Sunni enemies and sympathizers.

This of course does nothing but further de-stabilize the situation in Iraq. What willingess the Sunnis might have to participate in the process of creating a permanent national government is undermined by Shiites retaliating for countless suicide bombings and attacks on their people. And it demonstrates the willingness of these Shiite groups to subvert the national government to their own ends, weakening it in the process.

For the longest time it has appeared that the Sunni insurgents have operated with near impunity against our soldiers, the national government, and Shiite civilians. But the advantage the Sunni insurgents have enjoyed as a result of the residial effects of being as a whole beneficiaries of Saddam's rule, as well as their superior organization and unity, appear to be fading. The Shiites significantly outnumber the Sunnis, and as the Shiite militias and para-military organizations have become more organized and have begun to infiltrate the national government in the same fashion as the insurgents, they have become more capable of inflicting violence upon the insurgents and Sunni civilians. Were the situation in Iraq to descend into full-out civil war, the Shiites would certainly have almost every advantage over the Sunnis, and they know that. If the national government flounders, or is unable to prevent the Shiite militias from operating with impunity, then civil war becomes less and less a possibility, and more and more invetable.

In my opinion the only real solution to this is to slow-down the hasty movement to get Iraqis more involved in their own security, reducing the government's desperate need for manpower to the degree that they can remove or minimize the Shiite influence. Unfortunately this means our troops would need to do more of the fighting, and that we would need more of them, and this is exactly the opposite of the direction we are moving in. As we seek to implement "Iraqization" of the insurgency, we may be undermining what little chance we have of preventing civil war.