Iraq plans to cut Sunni fighters' salaries

The Iraqi government plans to cut salaries for the estimated 100,000 members of the Awakening movement whose revolt against al Qaida in Iraq played a key role in bringing about the sharp fall in violence in Iraq. The move is certain to aggravate building tensions between the Sunni volunteer force and the Shiite-led government, which assumed responsibility for the Awakening movement from the U.S. military earlier this month. The U.S. military, which calls the movement the Sons of Iraq, had been paying members $300 a month to carry a gun and protect their neighborhoods against al Qaida. Starting this month, Awakening members will be paid 300,000 Iraqi dinars, or about $250 a month, according to government spokesman Tahseen al-Sheikhly. Awakening leaders, who had been earning $400 to $600, will also receive the lower salary. Shuja Naje Shaker, an Awakening leader in the Guardians of Ghazaliyah, one of western Baghdad's former hot spots, warned that Awakening members won't be happy. ''Of course people are going to be angry. Probably we will have a big problem among all the Awakening in Iraq,'' Shaker said. He said he already had heard about the new salary and is hoping the U.S. military will make up the shortfall. That is something the U.S. military won't do, said Col. Bill Hickman, who commands U.S. forces in western Baghdad and has warned the Sons of Iraq in his area to expect lower salaries next month. ''We'll have to see what happens on Nov. 10,'' the next date on which salaries are due, he said. ''They will all quit,'' predicted Mohammed al-Girtani, an Awakening leader in the southern Baghdad neighborhood of Dora who had not been told about the lower salary. ''And if the Awakening quits, there will be problems in the neighborhoods because there will be no one to protect them.'' The Sunni Awakening revolt against al Qaida, which started in western Anbar province in late 2006 and then rippled across Baghdad and into northern Iraq through 2007, was instrumental in turning the tide of the war. Armed Awakening militias now control most of the former insurgency flash points in and around Baghdad, alongside U.S. and Iraqi security forces. But the Shiite-led government is deeply skeptical about the existence of what amounts to an armed Sunni militia, many of whose members once fought with the insurgency. It does not intend to keep paying the Awakening forces indefinitely, warned Sheikhly, the government spokesman. ''We want reconciliation, but Iraqis believe in another way than Americans about reconciliation. When Americans try to achieve reconciliation, they buy it,'' he said. Many Awakening fighters are former members of the old, disbanded Iraqi army, and they say they want their old jobs back. But the Iraqi government has promised jobs in the security forces to only 20 percent of them, and has said it will try to find other jobs for the remaining 80,000. Jobs are hard to come by in the current environment, and the government's own Shiite constituents also are clamoring for work. If a solution that pays the fighters an adequate wage is not found, there is a danger they will be tempted back to the insurgency or to join criminal gangs, warned Girtani, the Awakening leader. ''Some of these people are young and can go in wrong directions very easily,'' he said. ''Criminal gangs pay a lot of money and some of these young men, if their salaries are cut, might be tempted to join them.''