Sunni sheikhs turn their sights from US forces to Al-Qaeda

TimesOnLine-UK ^ | September 9, 2007 | Marie Colvin

[bobsunshine]

FOUR months ago the scene would have been unthinkable. Captain Henry Moltz of the 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment led a small group of men up the deserted street to a single-storey municipal building of mellow ochre brick that had been cracked by mortar blasts during months of ruinous fighting with Sunni insurgents.

At the entrance he was greeted with a kiss by Sheikh Sabah al-Janabi, a leading member of the tribe that had spearheaded many of the pitiless Sunni attacks on American forces in and around the little town of Jurf as Sakhr, 25 miles south of Baghdad.

As Moltz, 28, ducked out of the sun into the sparsely furnished interior last Thursday, a second sheikh was waiting for him with another kiss and a look of eager expectation. Moltz swiftly put him at his ease. “Sheikh, we have the first payment,” he declared.

An aide pulled from his knapsack a thick, heavy wad of used notes tied with rubber bands, and placed it on a table. Then came another, and another, until the table was piled high with 19 bundles of 2.5m dinars each – worth $38,000 (£19,000) in all.

Moltz looked the second sheikh, Taleb al-Janabi, in the eye. “If you keep to your contract and keep fighting the enemy, we owe you the balance,” he said.

The balance is $189,000 (£93,000), to be paid over three months if the sheikh sticks to his side of the bargain and drives out the largely foreign fighters of Al-Qaeda in Iraq who have set up camp in date palm groves along the banks of the Euphrates in Ruwiya, to the west.

[bobsunshine]

This is a good use of American money to enter a contract with the tribes to help our soldiers fight Al-Qaeda. “If you keep to your contract and keep fighting the enemy, we owe you the balance,”

[goldstategop]

Its based on mutual self interest, which is likely to make this alliance durable.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus

[ARE SOLE]

This is a good use of American money to enter a contract with the tribes to help our soldiers fight Al-Qaeda.

Hell yeah it is Bob. It's cheap at twice the price.

Regards

[SamuraiScot]

Sunni sheikhs turn their sights from US forces to Al-Qaeda

Did Harry Reid say he was saddened by this? Or does it merely represent a failure of U.S. troops to induce quarreling factions to get along, as Ted Kennedy might point out?

I mean, there's a failure here somewhere, isn't there?

[jwparkerjr]

When you consider what it costs in cold, hard cash when one of our brave fighting men or women is killed or wounded this cost is indeed very small.

I don’t in any way equate cash with the wellbeing of our forces, but the cost of doing business over there is a fact of life.

One of the talk show hosts the other day was pointing out that every time one of these locals turns to our side it’s because they’ve learned that all the horrible stuff they’ve heard about America and Americans from birth has been a lie.

Very few of the locals believed early on that we would come into their town and fight only if attacked or if we encountered an enemy. Most of them were convinced we would rape and kill indiscriminately and have since discovered that’s simply not our nature. Someone should explain that to the Hollywood moguls and some Dem members of Congress!

God bless our troops. It’s great that they’re beginning to be seen for what we’ve always been when we are another land, a force for good and for freedom.

[bert]

Especially when the money came from Saddam’s captured palaces. American taxpayers get good use of Saddam’s money and the military gets to say it was all given to the Iraqi people.

[GovernmentIsTheProblem]

Yup - I have the feeling that a lot of this is captured $ anyway.

[TWohlford]

“This is a good use of American money to enter a contract with the tribes to help our soldiers fight Al-Qaeda.”

The Turks ran Iraq for 1000 years like this. It seems like a great idea to me.

[samtheman]

Did Harry Reid say he was saddened by this? Or does it merely represent a failure of U.S. troops to induce quarreling factions to get along, as Ted Kennedy might point out? I mean, there's a failure here somewhere, isn't there?

There either is a failure or there's going to be a failure, that's the attitude of traitors like Kennedy and Reid. If they have to, they'll use the full power of the US Senate to manufacture US failure. That's what RATS do. And those two are King Rats.