IRAQ: It is difficult to see what the US can do to rectify the deteriorating security situation throughout Iraq, writes Michael Jansen
In the wave of sectarian violence precipitated by the destruction last Wednesday of the golden dome of a revered Shia shrine at Samarra, Iraq's security forces have shown that they cannot be relied on during periods of crisis.
On the one hand, police and armed troops have either stood by and watched or have joined in when rampaging black-shirted Shia Mahdi militiamen or gangs of Shia youths trashed or took over Sunni mosques in Baghdad and elsewhere. On the other hand, Sunnis are regularly detained at checkpoints mounted by the security forces - and the lifeless bodies of some of them, bearing signs of torture and military-style execution, have been found hours later dumped on waste ground.
Sunni spokesmen, US ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad and former UN human rights official John Pace agree that sectarian death squads are operating in the security forces. Anti-insurgency commando squads called the "Wolf Brigades", "Tigers" and "Scorpions", and even the highway patrol, have been found to be involved in abuses and killings in the centre of the country.
In the north, Sunni and Shia Arabs and Turkomen complain of harsh treatment and killings by Kurdish police and soldiers operating under orders of Kurdish politicians seeking to drive non-Kurds out of the contested oil city of Kirkuk.
In the south, members of the Mahdi army, which is headed by the rebel cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, join the police and act with impunity against anyone who opposes them.
Sunni Arabs, who bear the brunt of Shia violence in revenge for repeated attacks on Shia holy places carried out by Sunni insurgents, say that the state's monopoly of power, as exercised through national forces, has been hijacked by the Badr corps, the military wing of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq and by the Kurdish militias.
It is difficult to see how the US can rectify this situation without bringing in men free of militia taint and reconfiguring the security forces. So far, 230,000 soldiers and policemen have been recruited and at least partially trained. While some units are mixed, the majority are staffed by members of one community, reinforcing the ethnic and sectarian imbalance.
Only 53 of 98 Iraqi army battalions are capable of operating alongside US forces, 50 have US advisers, and none can carry out operations on their own.
To complicate matters, on Saturday Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani called for the raising of tribal levies to protect holy sites.
This call risks clashes between tribesmen and Shia militiamen, particularly members of the Mahdi army already deployed at mosques and shrines.