US and Iraqi military officials met with leaders of the Awakening Groups that were so crucial in achieving stability in Iraq---in fact, many officials say they were more important than the surge in achieving such stability as has been achieved in Iraq. (NYT)
The purpose of the meeting was to quell rumors---were they merely rumors, though?---that Iraq was planning a mass arrest. (NYT)
Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki has said that about 20 percent of the roughly 99,000 Awakening members on the American payroll would be incorporated into the Iraqi Army, the national police and other security forces.
At the meeting on Monday, General Hameed told the Awakening members that they would be given application forms for jobs in the security forces. Those not accepted would be hired into civilian jobs in ministries or other government offices, he said. All Awakening members, General Hameed said, would continue to be paid the same amount the Americans paid them. They receive about $300 a month.
The security forces, he said, would accept only Awakening members born from 1977 to 1988 — from 20 to 31 years old — and the applicants would have to be literate and meet certain educational criteria.
“The Iraqi Army is not targeting the Awakening Councils, and the army will not conduct random raids or detentions of Awakening members,” General Hameed said.
He said any Awakening member who broke the law in the future would be arrested. (NYT)
He asked them to bear in mind that they are all Iraqis. I'm relieved they finally took some sort of step to calm things down because recent reports [see below] seemed to make it quite clear that tensions were starting to escalate.
As you'd expect, some members seemed reassured; others not so much. More at The New York Times....
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