Iraqis Begin Duty With Refusal

George Bush's plans to build a new Iraqi army has hit an unexpected obstacle with newly recruited Sunni Muslims refusing to serve outside their home areas.

Such was the level of anger that some newly graduated students started ripping off their uniforms during a graduation parade and throwing their clothes on the floor.

Apparently, the men only joined the Iraqi army because the present, mostly Shia, Iraqi armed forces have been acting brutally towards the local Sunni population. The men thought that if they signed up they could be a counterbalance to this problem.

Recruiting Sunnis into the army has been a key goal of U.S. policies to rebuild the Iraqi armed forces. Sunday's ceremony for the first group out of a total of 5,000 men recruited from Anbar represented major progress in that effort. But army commanders worry that if the men serve in their own home towns, they could be co-opted by insurgents.

While the fracas fell well short of outright mutiny -- there were no reported injuries, and the soldiers ate a meal in an orderly manner later that day -- a video clip of the graduation aired on the al-Jazeera and al-Arabiya television networks throughout Monday gave the impression of a near-riot.

However, US commanders appear to have very little sympathy for their plight.

Negard said the soldiers knew what they were getting into when they enlisted. "They're recruited for national service, and they know this," he said. "They're prepared from the beginning to serve where the needs of the Iraqi army go."

"Diversity is good for the force," he said. "The bottom line is, when they're under fire and they're training, there are no signs of sectarianism."

The official line was rejected by the new recruits:

But it isn't yet clear which way the opinion of the soldiers will swing. Another volunteer, Falah Hussein, said the soldiers' officers have met with them and asked for four days to try to work things out.

"If there is no solution, we are going home," he said.

This is further proof were any needed that Iraq is starting to fracture and that Bush's plans for a united Iraqi Army may simply be pie in the sky.

The best laid plans of mice and mice, eh? Everything Georgie touches seem to turn to shit.

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Tags: Iraq, fragmentation, US, UK, Britain, Shia, Sunni, Kurd, recruits, rebel, mutiny, refuse, serve, areas,