MORE ON THE SUNNIS

From the same McClatchy article as below, we learn that Maliki isn't exactly embracing the Sunnis:

Former Sunni insurgents and tribal leaders will expect some kind of payoff for having turned on al Qaida, said Lt. Col. Richard Welch, who works primarily with Sunni tribal leaders and has negotiated with insurgents. Maliki’s government, however, has been hesitant to grant concessions, he said.

“Reconciliation is a goal, it’s a process, it’s the end result of what we’d like to see, but it could take generations — and that is if people were serious about it,” Welch said. Welch said it took him two weeks to persuade the government to agree to incorporate more than 1,700 Sunni fighters into Interior Ministry forces in the western Baghdad suburb of Abu Ghraib after they’d turned against al Qaida.

He also said the Shiite government’s inability to deliver services to Sunni neighborhoods is a problem. “Politically there is still corruption and sectarianism in some of the police security forces,” Welch said. “Politically, the government doesn’t seem to be able effectively to deliver services in a way that dramatically improves their situation.”