Perhaps the most worrisome aspect of the militia culture is that many
government ministers now have an unchecked power to install their own
people throughout their fiefs.

Over the past two months the interior minister, Bayan Jabr, a member
of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (the party
that controls the Badr Brigades) has purged the ministry of officials
from outside his militant group.

He apparently intends to remain in control of the ministry even if he
is forced, under the next government, to resign his post.



From The International Herald Tribune, 3/9/06:
http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/03/08/opinion/edsherman.php

Iraq's militias: Many little armies, one huge problem

By Matt Sherman The New York Times

WASHINGTON

While the violence that followed the bombing of the Golden Mosque at
Samarra in Iraq last month has abated, the larger problem it exposed
continues:

ever since Saddam Hussein fell, armed militias have roamed the country
dispensing justice and retribution to other ethnic and religious
groups as they see fit.

Ideally, not only can the government and its American supporters stop
this vigilantism, but they can also channel it into a productive role.

Having spent two years in Baghdad as the American policy adviser to
Iraq's Interior Ministry, I have a sense of just how strong these
militias really are and just how destabilizing they can be.

While there is no official count, in 2004 we held negotiations with
what we considered the nine major groups, which in all represented
tens of thousands of armed men.

For the most part they are grass- roots forces without uniforms, bases
or standardized training.

They appear at makeshift checkpoints throughout the country guarding
the perimeter of hospitals and airports, and persecute their rivals
under the guise of "neighborhood watches."

Perhaps most troubling, since the Shiite-led government came to power
last May, militia members have entered the Iraqi Army and police
forces en masse.

The danger is that many feel stronger allegiance to their militias and
religious sects than to the state.

One group, the Badr Organization, which is led by Abdul Aziz al-Hakim
and fought Saddam from exile in Iran, has slowly gained virtual
control of the Interior Ministry;

another, the followers of the young anti-American cleric Moktada
al-Sadr, has gained significant influence over police and governors in
the south of the country.

It is all too possible that these and other militias will become more
powerful than the Iraqi army and police forces.

During the sectarian gang attacks since the Samarra bombing, Iraqis
reflexively turned to their tribes and family connections for
security, having lost faith in the central government.

_________________________________________________________

Smell that coming civil war? Well, you can thank your presidunce.

Harry