New Puppet Prime Minister Allawi has announced that nine Iraqi militias have agreed to disband and that the ones not agreeing are “outlawed.” This agreement allegedly includes the Kurdish pershmerga of the KDP and the PUK, which seems odd. Consider the stand-off that currently exists between the position of the Kurds and Sistani:
But while there appeared to be progress in New York, Kurdish Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani warned Iraq’s unity could be at risk if the U.N. resolution did not endorse autonomy granted to Kurds under the present interim constitution.
“We are not bluffing here, we are serious — it’s the right of our people,” Barzani, head of the Kurdistan Regional Government in northern Iraq, told Reuters in an interview.
The latest draft does not mention the interim constitution, which includes a clause that would allow Kurds to veto any attempt to encroach on their autonomy in the north.
But the spiritual leader of Iraq’s Shi’ite majority, Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, objects to any Kurdish veto and says he will not back a U.N. resolution endorsing the constitution.
I find it difficult to believe that the Kurds will dissolve their peshmerga before this conflict is resolved. Reportedly, the peshmerga all have police and security positions anyway, so they have likely assumed a low profile for the time being. As for SCIRI’s Badr Brigades, which Allawi claims is party to the agreement, SCIRI spokemen claimed negotiations have not yet begun. Considering that Allawi is saying that under the agreement most of the militias are to be “phased out” by 2005, it seems likely that this is simply a ploy to brand as “outlaw” Sadr’s militia, while the other militias who are not participating in the current uprising anyway, simply stay home and bide their time. Possibly Allawi has made a deal with the US military that he will reconstitute the Ba’athist army of Saddam and deal with the “illegal” militias, which would relieve the Americans.
This is actually a pretty depressing statement from Allawi and Co., since it sounds like something Paul Bremer would announce in both substance and tone and in its sleight-of-hand duplicity. Not that I’m surprised, but it would have been nice if the New Puppets would have come up with some actually constructive move to do something decent for the Iraqis. Wouldn’t it be a smarter move to have the New Puppets fix up the horrible children’s hospitals or something?
UPDATE: Clearly, this is a Bremer deal, as I thought. AP reports:
Under the agreement, most of the militias are to be phased out by 2005, in a countrywide program worth about $200 million.
The militias who signed up would be treated as army veterans – eligible for government benefits, including pensions and job placement programs, depending on their service, according to coalition officials, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Participating militias would hand in their weapons to the Ministry of Interior and join the program as individuals, not as units or groups, coalition officials said.
All the rest, including al-Sadr’s militia, will be declared “illegal armed forces” that could be arrested when the Coalition Provisional Authority order is signed later Monday, the officials said.
Watch Abu Ghraib fill up with “illegal militias” now. The Iraqis opposed to the occupation, which is most of them, will see Allawi as a tool, confirming what they probably expected anyway. Anyone taking up arms against the occupation forces will be labeled an “illegal militia member” and jailed.