TROUBLE IN PARADISE

It looks like the Sunni's from Anbar province have their own notion of where they should serve.

From Reuters:

BAGHDAD, May 3 (Reuters) - The commander of Iraq's ground forces said on Wednesday he would not tolerate soldiers' protests against their deployment orders after a near-mutiny at the weekend by army recruits.

In an embarrassing episode for the U.S.-trained army, hundreds of young Sunni Arabs staged a rowdy protest during a graduation parade in Anbar province on Sunday after learning they would be posted away from their home towns.

"These people joined the army and were assigned to one area but they bypassed the army's conditions. We don't need people who put their conditions above the army's conditions," Lieutenant-General Abdul Qader told reporters.


From Stars & Stripes:


HABBANIYAH, Iraq — The first all-Sunni class of Iraqi army trainees graduated from an American-run basic training course here Sunday, marking what U.S. military officials called a significant step in rebuilding the Iraqi security forces.

Some 978 men — including more than 800 from Fallujah — were sworn in as privates in the new Iraqi army, the first cadre of a planned 6,500 Sunni troops to be recruited from and trained in Anbar province.

[snip]

After the ceremony, word spread through the new troops that they might not, in fact, be deployed in Fallujah, but in other, more violent areas of Anbar. Many of the new troops threw their hats in anger or ripped off their uniform shirts and waved them over their heads.

Then, as an Iraqi sergeant major tried to calm the troops, an unlikely figure grabbed the microphone. Gen. Sha’aban, commander of the Anbar province Iraqi police force, exhorted the soldiers not to give up. As a thousand men crouched and sat in front of him, he told them that they serve all of Iraq, that Iraqis from Basra, for instance, serve in Fallujah and vice versa.

After answering several minutes of questions posed by a representative chosen from among the new soldiers, it appeared Sha’aban had assuaged most of their concerns.


From UPI:

One of the recruits, Ahmad Mahmoud Azzawi said his mind was made up.

"If they disperse us to Shiite and Kurdish areas, we will not go," he said. "Frankly, we would much rather go back to our land, to plant and reap our produce, than to serve others."

From the Truthiness Squad at the Defense Department, not one mention of this protest.