AMMAN, Jordan, June 3 (UPI) -- Since being endorsed by Iraq's elected Parliament last month, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has used every opportunity to stress that his government's top priority is to restore security and dismantle the armed militias in his war-torn country. But that's easier said than done.
Maliki is racing against time as more corpses continue to turn up every day, often handcuffed and shot execution style, and as fighting expands to internal Shiite strife in southern Iraq.
In an effort to prevent a total outbreak of civil war, the prime minister declared a one-month state of emergency in the southern port city of Basra Wednesday after hundreds of people were killed in the past few weeks in fighting between rival Shiite militias.
During a visit to Basra, Iraq's second largest city where British forces are deployed, Maliki told tribal leaders and politicians that security is "first, second and third," and that "security men must be able to work without fears and interference of the political parties...Iraq cannot be stable unless the law and sovereignty of Iraq are respected."
The fighting in Basra in recent weeks has involved power struggles among three Shiite parties suspected of participation in oil smuggling and whose militias are believed to be funded and supplied from neighboring Iran.
The developments in Basra, analysts say, not only proves that the mere existence of militias constitutes a recipe for disaster and sectarian fighting, but also threatens a civil war where even ethnic identity will mean very little to gunmen.
Maliki's government task of dismantling the militias will be the most difficult to achieve as he seeks to attract thousands of militiamen from eleven parties to join the official security and army forces that he hopes will be ready to take over security responsibilities from the U.S. forces within 18 months.
But the man has so far failed to name ministers for the defense and interior, as well as the national security, although he said he will announce them on Sunday amid reports from Baghdad that no agreement among the sectarian parties has been reached on the candidates.
Under U.S. pressure, Maliki has been seeking to find independent interior and defense ministers with no links to Sunni insurgents and Shiite militias to avoid politicizing the positions deemed the most important for restoring security and building a strong and professional Iraqi force.
Iraqi analysts say Maliki faces a tough challenge especially in disbanding the militias belonging to his ruling Shiite coalition and Kurdish allies: The Badr Brigades and al-Mehdi Army supported by the powerful Supreme Council of Islamic Revolution in Iraq and the Kurdish peshmerga.
Maliki has thus far been unable to receive a clear political endorsement from his partners in the Shiite United Iraqi Alliance, of which his relatively small Dawa Party is a member, for disbanding the militias. He has also failed to receive support from his Kurdish allies, including President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd who insists the peshmerga is not a militia but an official body of the Kurdistan regional government and is to be excluded from dissolution.
Analysts say the prime minister may need to offer these militias favorable incentives, such as promising future political posts, while providing different carrots and sticks to the rest of the armed groups to encourage them to join the ranks of the official Iraqi forces.
Iraqi analysts, however, warn that the official security forces are already penetrated with thousands of members more loyal to their tribes and sectarian political parties than to the central government in Baghdad and its attempts to provide protection to the diverse population as a whole.
This is something that Maliki apparently seems to recognize and is reported to have been separating and redistributing militiamen from police units throughout the country to reduce their sectarian clout in the police force.
The move falls short of meeting demands by Arab Sunni leaders calling for the complete removal of the interior ministry to eliminate its shady and sectarian officials, which they accuse of having formed death squads hunting down and killing Sunnis.
Merging sectarian militiamen into the security forces also carries risks for many Iraqis, who fear the move would strengthen the violent sectarian trends in the police force.
Iraqi commentators say the government must provide better salaries and equipment to the police force -- whose members are favorite targets for insurgent and al-Qaida attacks -- to attract militiamen who are better equipped and probably better paid by their respective parties.
The independent Iraqi Az-Zaman daily quoted police officers as complaining that some of the armed groups are more experienced than the official security force, which they said needs to be "purged from its corrupt elements and liberated from the sectarian political pressures."
Independent Iraqi analysts say the government should also focus its efforts on restoring basic services to the common Iraqis if it wants to undermine the militias that have been exploiting public distrust towards the government and thus weakening its tasks.
But providing safety for citizens remains to be the most urgent job as morgues report an average of 1,000 Iraqi deaths per month, excluding the dozens of other casualties from the almost daily bombings believed to be carried out by al-Qaida elements.
Maliki's unenviable position of trying to dismantle the armed militias and building professional security forces that could provide this protection is going to need a lot more than promises.
