Sons of Iraq: Recruiting and Employing

" Coalition forces in Iraq have moved to a doctrine centered more on counterinsurgency and begun to engage the sheikhs, the military has relied more and more on security forces supplied by local sheikhs to point out bad guys, weapon caches, and IEDs. In Arab Jabour, those forces are called Sons of Iraq.
Sayifiyah, in southern Arab Jabour, had local villagers trying to start a Sons of Iraq program before US forces even reached their village.

Al Qaeda in Iraq has long been the only power in much of Arab Jabour, and the people of Sayafiyah were fed up. At the start of January, a group of sheikhs from the area traveled to meet Colonel Ferrel, the commander of the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division to ask for help in their village. They talked about the many things that they needed, and about their desire to use Sons of Iraq to secure their village. Colonel Ferrel asked for a volunteer from among the sheikhs to head the Sons of Iraq when he reached their village. The sheikhs looked at each other indecisively, until Sheikh Sayeed (a pseudonym, used for his protection), dressed like an al Qaeda in Iraq fighter, volunteered. Colonel Ferrel looked at him and said, “OK. You’d better be ready, because if my guys get there and get shot at, I’m coming after you!”"
Acute Politics

You know these stories of the recent success with the tribal leaders is almost too painful for me to post. No not because I hate America, but because for the better part of the last three years we had been calling for a change of course, and we had been posting the voices of the people crying for help, and we read about the "rumors of a tribal awakening" and nothing was done. Most of the same people that now tout the success were the same ones fighting a change in strategy or a rise in the troop numbers...It's such a hollow victory for many of us on this side of the fence. We have had to argue for the change, and at the same time watch our friends and their families die in Iraq.

So I guess we will celebrate the success, it's just we still have such a bitter taste in out mouth, that you might not be able to tell our delight from first glance.