Word: iraqi
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Turkey has long been hostile to the emerging power of Iraq's Kurdish minority, located primarily in northern Iraq. Concerned that Kurds might take control of the oil rich Iraqi city of Kirkuk, Turkey inserted itself into Iraq's domestic political problems by dubiously claiming stewardship of Kirkuk's minority Turkoman population (with whom ethnic Turks share a distant Central Asian past and little else.) More recently, Turkey has demanded that Iraq's Kurds rid northern Iraq of the PKK, a job that the government-sanctioned Kurdish peshmerga militias are unable to do. The peshmerga are currently overstretched in Baghdad...
This time however there are some important differences. Turkey isn't invading the lawless hinterland of a pariah nation (Saddam's Iraq) but a region that not too long ago was considered the one relative success of the American project in Iraq. The United States - which controls Iraqi airspace - tried to forestall a Turkish invasion, but eventually caved into Turkish demands and agreed to a limited incursion. The fact that Turkey was ready to risk alienating its American ally for an operation with little chance of strategic success is a testament to the uproar by the Turkish public for action...
...Wayne Grigsby, who commands a U.S. Army brigade in Madain, said that they were not turning volunteers away. Instead, a lump sum is provided by U.S. military to local Iraqi leaders that is then divided among all the CLCs. The intent is to encourage Iraqis to keep the number of CLCs down, so that each man's salary does not suffer. Instead, men like Jabouri have divided the money among an ever-growing number of volunteers (resulting in some fighters' receiving just $70 a month), and then lobbying the U.S. military and the Iraqi government for more financial assistance...
Grigsby is aware that some Iraqi leaders are tempted to treat CLC groups as a way to provide employment to men in their communities. He stressed that it was not designed to be a jobs program. "The intent of the program is not economic development," Grigsby said. "The intent of the program is security." That distinction, though, is lost on many Iraqis...
...afternoon of Dec. 23, Ambassador Ryan Crocker emphasized to reporters that the U.S. has already begun a $155 million program designed to provide vocational education and job training to CLCs. But, as with many initiatives in Iraq, the jobs program will, in the end, depend on the Iraqi government. It has pledged $155 million of its own. But Iraq's corrupt and sectarian government has so far been unable to move forward on basic issues like how to share oil revenue. Its willingness and ability to administer a jobs program for Sunni men is questionable to say the least...