And if I could point out, by the way, we have not armed tribes. We don't have weapons to give them. We have never given weapons to tribes. What we have done is applaud when they have asked if they could point their weapons at al Qaeda instead of at us, and we have then worked very hard to try to help them tie into national institutions because that's the piece that makes sure that there is some mitigation of risk, that we are not merely allowing tribes again to turn their weapons on al Qaeda and then turn them on, say, other Iraqis.
I think (1) PR may simply be wrong about this. Spencer Ackerman points out that last June,Gen. Mixon said we are arming them and Maliki believes that we are arming the Sunnis. Michael Ware reports that we did arm the Sunnis in Anbar:
CORPORAL TIMOTHY COFFMAN, U.S. MARINE CORPS: We teach them a lot of our tactics. And we get them -- get them, you know, pretty damn -- pretty damn good.
WARE (on camera): Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We gave them weapons.
(CROSSTALK) UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Give them weapons, uniforms.
(2) We do know that we have been giving money to the tribes and there's nothing to prevent them from using that money to buy weapons, so PR may be technically correct but avoiding the real issue.
1Federal News Service
September 10, 2007 Monday
JOINT HEARING OF THE HOUSE ARMED SERVICES AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS COMMITTEES;
SUBJECT: THE STATUS OF THE WAR AND POLITICAL DEVELOPMENTS IN IRAQ; CHAIRED BY: REPRESENTATIVE IKE SKELTON (D-MO) OF THE ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE; REPRESENTATIVE TOM LANTOS (D-CA) OF THE FOREIGN AFFAIRS COMMITTEE;
WITNESSES: GENERAL DAVID PETRAEUS, U.S. ARMY, COMMANDING GENERAL, MULTINATIONAL FORCE IRAQ; RYAN CROCKER, U.S. AMBASSADOR TO IRAQ; LOCATION: 345 CANNON HOUSE OFFICE BUILDING, WASHINGTON, D.C.SECTION: CAPITOL HILL HEARING
LENGTH: 45745 words
LOCATION: 345 CANNON HOUSE OFFICE BUILDING, WASHINGTON, D.C. TIME: 12:30 P.M. EDT DATE: MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 2007
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