The Redhunter

Before we get to that, though, a progress report from his opening statement:

GEN. AUSTIN: ...We've had a productive month since my last Pentagon press conference. We've experienced continued low levels of violence, with 15 of the last 16 weeks remaining below the 200-attacks-per-week mark. In Baghdad, which as you know is a city of roughly 6 million people, we've averaged less than 4 attacks per day for the last 13 weeks. And this is truly remarkable and it would've been hard to imagine this just six months ago.

In another sign of progress, Anbar province, which was at one time the home of the Sunni insurgency, transitioned to Iraqi control just three weeks ago. This milestone would not have been thought possible a year ago, but because of the hard work of our men and women and our Iraqi partners, Anbar continues to maintain a very low level of violence, even after the transfer....

Combined coalition and Iraqi security force operations in the north, in the west and in Baghdad have put al Qaeda in disarray, and these operations have significantly reduced the number of foreign fighters coming across the border.

And while al Qaeda has a complex network that is good at reseeding these fighters, our actions to stem the flow of foreign fighters and our ability to take extremist leaders off the battlefield are having positive effects on the security conditions.

We've also had success against special groups criminals in the south. We've isolated them from the population and we've dealt considerable blows to their network of lethal accelerants.

Once again our efforts have put "al Qaeda in disarray". It has been a long time since I've heard any journalist challenge this assessment, so you know it must be true.

Then it's on to the Sons of Iraq (SOI). Note how the general uses his platform to issue a stern public warning to the Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki:

GEN. AUSTIN:....One of our primary focus areas as we move forward is transitioning the Sons of Iraq program to the Iraqi government. The volunteer movement that started in Anbar and spread across the rest of the country significantly contributed to the security successes that we are now taking advantage of.

The sons of Iraq have paid a heavy price fighting al Qaeda and other insurgent groups, and it's important that the government of Iraq responsibly transition them into meaningful employment. Prime Minister Maliki has assured me that the government will help those who help the people of Iraq. And so next week in Baghdad the government will accept responsibility for approximately 54,000 Sons of Iraq, and we will be there to assist in the transfer.

We spent the last few weeks working hand in hand with our Iraqi partners on this transition, and I'm confident that this will go well. And you should know that we will not abandon the Sons of Iraq. We'll continue to follow up in the future to ensure that they get paid and that they do in fact transition to meaningful employment.

This is a significant opportunity for the government to demonstrate to the Iraqi people and to the rest of the world that it is serious about reconciliation and about honoring its promises -- promise to the Sons of Iraq. And so with increased security comes different challenges, challenges that I am confident that we will continue to overcome with our Iraqi partners. As a result, I remain optimistic about the future of this country.

Wow. There's a lot here. Maybe I'm misreading this, but I don't think so. The SOI are mostly Sunni, an it is well known that the Shiite government of al-Maliki is suspicious of the SOI and sees them as a threat. There has been much recently about how Maliki was going to disband the SOI and basically just tell all of them to go home.

We, on the other hand, want to transition as many SOI as we can to paying civilian jobs or to positions in the Iraqi Police or Army.

The point is that the SOI should remain around forever. Once the insurgency is gone they've served their purpose. And it is not entirely unfair for Maliki to want them gone. The problem is that we have to do it the right way. If we just turn them lose when they've been expecting jobs, there will be trouble

The SOI (originally Concerned Local Citizens) were and are a sort of "super neighborhood watch." They have been paid out of the U.S. Treasury, and no we do not give them weapons, it's just that everyone in Iraq seems to have an AK-47.

Anyway, the point of the SOI was to get the Iraqis involved in their own defense, take ownership of their situation, and all that. If they have a stake in their future they'll fight for it and if they fight for it we win.

So it might not have sounded very tough when Austin said that Maliki had a "significant opportunity for the government to demonstrate to the Iraqi people", but I think it was "diplomese" for "you screw this up pal and you risk reigniting the insurgency."

Austin publicly mentioned Maliki's promise and is now publicly holding him to it.

Austin, as commander of MNC-Iraq, is in a position where he works directly with the top levels of the Iraqi Government. It is part of his job.

In his closing statement Austin came back to this again when he said that "And I'd like to close by saying that the government of Iraq will have a great opportunity over the next several months to make some significant progress and the Multinational Corps will stand side-by- side with them each step of the way." In other words, we'll help you but you had better come through.

Then Lt. Gen. Odierno explained the stakes last February in his "exit interview" when he left as corps commander:

What I worry about is, there's a window. And we need is some political progress in order to maintain this window. And if we don't maintain the window, the populate will feel that they have no where to turn and I don't know what will happen then, and so this is what makes this somewhat of a tentative security gain right now. Because unless you have the populace behind you you will not maintain security.

So if the Sunnis in the SOI get the impression that the government doesn't care about them then risk reigniting the insurgency. Odierno got it. Austin gets it. Let's hope that Maliki gets it. .

Two reporters followed up on this during the Q & A part of the briefing:

Q General, Bill McMichael, Military Times newspapers. You mentioned that next week the government of Iraq will accept responsibility for 54,000 Sons of Iraq. Could you give us some detail on what sorts of jobs they'll be put into? Are they all going to be accepted into the Iraqi security forces for training and integration into the ISF?

GEN. AUSTIN: Well, as you no doubt know, the total number of Sons of Iraq throughout the country is about 99,000. And 54,000 of that number reside in the Baghdad province.

And so we will start with the Baghdad province next month and transition that element first, and then we will begin to move to other parts of the country and transition those elements.

We set aside -- we said up front that about 20 percent of the total number of Sons of Iraq would go into the security forces, and so we're looking to get about 20 percent of the total population hired as policemen. There will be others that join the army, but the rest of that population will go into other types of jobs. We're working with the Iraqi government to help provide job skills and training for those that are interested. And we've made some progress there, but that will be -- that will take time.

But we should know or we should recognize that the government is committed to taking care of the Sons of Iraq. And I talked with Prime Minister Maliki and others that are senior leaders in the government, and they assure me that they will stick with the folks that have helped us or helped the country of Iraq over time, and they will ensure that these folks who have helped us are properly transitioned into civilian employment.

Q General, the 54,000 that are going to be transitioned out of the 99,000, that's in addition to the roughly 15,000 to 20,000 that have already started to be transitioned over into the ISF or into security forces jobs?

GEN. AUSTIN: Well, we've got about 9,000 that have gone into police forces, and so there will be a number of others that will transition into police forces. And so again, the total number of people that go into security forces will be about 20 percent.

And later:

Q Hi, General. JJ Sutherland with NPR.

I just wanted to follow up quickly on the SOI program. You're saying 54,000 of them will be transitioning to the government of Iraq. Does that mean they're coming off of the American payroll and going onto the Iraqi government payroll?

GEN. AUSTIN: Yeah, that's a great question. That's exactly what it means. That means, for that 54,000 in October, the Iraqi government for the month of October will begin paying their salaries.

Now, this is a deliberate process that we'll go through to hand off responsibility from us to the Iraqi government.

We'll work through, you know, all of the details to make sure that every individual's accounted for and they are paid, and most importantly that they, at some point in time, get meaningful jobs. But that's exactly what it means. It means beginning the month of October for that 54,000, the government of Iraq will pay their salaries.
...

Q ...what happens in October? I understand eventually you want to have them be plumbers of electricians, but in October, there are a lot of checkpoints that have been manned by the Sons of Iraq. Are those checkpoints all going to go away? Are they only going to be staffed by Iraqi police now? That's my question. It's not eventually, it's next month.

GEN. AUSTIN: Yeah, next month the Iraqi government will begin to work their way through this. And there's no question that some of them, some of the checkpoints, many of the checkpoints will be -- will be manned by Iraqi security forces. In some cases, there may be SOI that will be tasked to help with that work. But in most cases, I think the Iraqi government will be looking to transition people into different types of jobs.

So Austin implicitly acknowledges that transition is going to be a problem, and refused to be nailed down on a time line.

I'll follow the issue of transitioning the SOI and will report back as developments arise.

As always, there was much more of value in the briefing, so watch the whole thing

And ok, maybe it's not as big a deal as the financial mess but I thought it was important.

Tuesday Update

What timing, a Yahoo News/Time story appeared today about just this issue. Money quote:

The last time the U.S. was involved in disbanding large Iraqi military units, things didn't go well - the fateful 2003 decision to dissolve the Iraqi army proved to be a key strategic blunder that gave a massive boost to the insurgency. This week the U.S. will try again, transferring control of 54,000 of the 100,000-strong largely Sunni citizen patrols known as the Sons of Iraq (SOI) to a Shi'ite-led government many of them view with suspicion. The rest will remain on the U.S payroll, as part of a phased transfer.

Some 20% of these anti-al-Qaeda groups - many of whom had been insurgents paid by the U.S to switch sides - will be incorporated into the Iraqi security forces. The rest will be given civilian jobs or training in a bid to help reintegrate them into the general population. But it won't be that simple: after years of vicious sectarian violence, many Sunni Arab patrol members fear retribution from the government; and indeed, some government officials consider the SOIs as little more than thugs and murderers. And as is so often the case in Iraq, the U.S is being blamed - this time by Sunni allies, such as tribal leader Sheikh Saleh al-A'ghayde, who accuse the Americans of abandoning them.

There's some dispute over whether we really disbanded Saddam's army or whether it dissolved itself in the aftermath of the invasion, but I'm not worried about that right now. The important thing is that the Iraqi and American governments handle transfer of SOI personnel correctly.