Al Douri was the latest in a string of Awakening commanders killed by
either Al Qaida operatives or Iranian-sponsored Shi'ite militias. On Sept.
15, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates arrived in Baghdad to examine the
situation and transfer the U.S. military command from Gen. David Petraeus to
Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno.
"The challenge, I think, for Gen. Odierno is: How do we work with the
Iraqis to preserve the gains that have already been achieved, expand upon
them, even as the numbers of U.S. forces are shrinking," Gates, who
acknowledged the threat to Awakening members, said. "There's still people
who would like to see this fail and the important thing will be to keep the
pressure on all of them."
Officials said 25 percent of the nearly 100,000 members of the
Awakening Councils would be absorbed into the Iraqi police and military.
They said the rest could be vulnerable to Al Qaida or Shi'ite retaliation.
"They cannot throw away their weapons and forget about all the battles
they fought," said Ali Al Hathem Al Suleiman, a member of the Awakening
Council in the Anbar province. "What the soldier and policeman could not do
was done by the tribesmen. Now it is time for the Iraqi government to solve
this problem and accept them in the security and other establishments where
they can be integrated so that they can earn their living."
The Awakening Councils, also called Sons of Iraq, were regarded as
playing a major role in the reduction of the Al Qaida presence in Iraq.
Sunni tribesmen in the councils identified, tracked and killed thousands of
Al Qaida operatives, many of them foreigners from such countries as Algeria,
Kuwait, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Yemen.
"Al Qaida has formed special secret cells to assassinate the Sunni
Awakening forces and their leaders," Bassam Al Dulaimi, an Awakening
commander in Baghdad, said.
