Iraq unites local security forces

BAGHDAD, Dec. 18 (UPI) -- Iraq will oversee a U.S.-financed plan that organizes former insurgents and their followers into local security forces.

Iraq will move the militants into training quickly, Saad al-Muttalibi, an official at Iraq's Ministry of National Dialogue and Reconciliation, told USA Today. "It's not a good idea to have people with guns running around the streets," he said.

The new program began in Iraq's Anbar province, when tribal leaders began working with Iraqi and U.S. forces to battle al-Qaida, and it quickly expanded. USA Today said.

"It's now reassuring that the government of Iraq recognizes that this is a program that has worked in Anbar and is beginning to work elsewhere in the country," U.S. Navy Rear Adm. Gregory Smith, a U.S. military spokesman, told USA Today.