Reconciliation needed in Iraq‘s most violent city

Reconciliation needed in Iraq‘s most violent city - Yahoo! News document.body.className = ‘js-enabled‘; Skip to navigation » Skip to content » U.S. Australia/Antarctica Reconciliation needed in Iraq‘s most violent city Buzz Up IM del.icio.us Yahoo! Bookmarks By DENIS D. GRAY, Associated Press Writer Denis D. Gray, Associated Press Writer – Wed Dec 3, 1:26 pm ET AP – U.S Army Staff Sgt Brian Peterson from Karnes City, Texas, of 3rd Platoon, 302rd Military Police Company, … Pl Video: Jury deliberates in 'fragging' case Pl Video: Bucks Co. Elementary School Supports Local Troops Pl Video: New death sentence for Chemical Ali

"Half of the terrorists would be defeated if we defeat unemployment," says police Gen. Khalid Soltan, citing an example of how desperately Mosul citizens scour for jobs.

Fixing Mosul is a test of whether the Baghdad government can successfully grapple with potentially explosive forces beneath a still fragile stability achieved elsewhere in Iraq.

A dozen Sunni insurgent groups alongside a spectrum of others. Hostility among the province‘s seven major groups and 26 tribes. Neglect, probably calculated, by the central government. Unemployment running more than 60 percent and electricity spluttering in for an average of four hours a day.

"Mosul has been off the political map of Iraq," says Alexander Laskaris, a U.S. State Department official who heads the Provincial Reconstruction Team.

Violence — from car bombs targeting police to masked gunmen slaying Christians — occurs daily in this ancient, in parts graceful, city known as the "Pearl of the North," a place once famed for its refined culture, learning and tolerance among ethnic and religious groups.

U.S. commanders say that the "security piece" is moving ahead, but the politics and economy of Mosul have failed to follow.

With Sunni Arabs largely boycotting the January 2005 elections, 31 of 41 council seats were captured by the Kurds, who make up less than a third of the population, whereas the Sunnis account for some 60 percent.

Major army units in Mosul that were dominated by Kurdish soldiers and officers have been replaced by largely Sunni ones. U.S. commanders say some Sunni troops have been telling residents they had come to liberate their city from the Kurds.

If election results please the central government, development funds it had earlier withheld for political reasons could flow.

But unpredictable is the Kurdish reaction at a time of conflict between Baghdad and the Kurdish regional government over Kirkuk and other disputed territories, including towns around Mosul. The Kurds have semiautonomous control over three northern Iraq provinces.

A recent report by the International Crisis Group, which monitors conflicts around the world, warned that the Arab-Kurdish schism, with Mosul as one of its epicenters, could arguably exceed the Sunni-Shiite divide that spawned the 2005-2007 sectarian war.

The election "will tamp down some of the violence, but not all of it. There will still be al-Qaida and the rejectionists," says Lt. Col. Robert Molinari, serving with the key U.S. military unit in Mosul. And there will still be the economy to set right, something U.S. planners say may take a generation.

"We‘ve (the Americans) been here five years and the city has seen a steady decline. The people are despondent. So we have been handed a monumental job — to fix the third largest city in Iraq," says Lt. Col. Kirk Fernitz, planning chief for the Mosul Reconstruction Operations Center, a new joint U.S.-Iraq effort to apply "rapid, shock treatment" and win some dispirited hearts and minds.

"It‘s the non-lethal aspects of our operations that will do it in the long term. The lethal stuff, we could do this forever, and we don‘t have forever," says Molinari, the regiment‘s executive officer, from Fort Hood, Texas.

About $13 million is already being spent on removing war rubble, repairing schools and hospitals, supplying chlorine for the water treatment plant. The Iraqi government is watching how this money is being spent before injecting a crucial $100 million into long-range projects, including electricity generation, says Fernitz, of Strasburg, Pa.

The dearth of electricity has also contributed to joblessness with Mosul‘s few large enterprises hobbled and unable to expand. A decrepit banking system is reluctant to extend loans to would-be small-scale businessmen, while a fourth year of severe drought has left some 100,000 farmers in the province desperately seeking any employment — including that of roadside bomb planters.

Whether the current projects are Band-Aids on a festering wound or foundations of a solid economy is still open to question.

But whatever it takes, the Iraqis will have to carry it out. Irrespective of what President-elect Barack Obama decides about U.S. involvement in Iraq, the Americans are winding down programs and preparing to hand many more to Mosul officials — ready or not.

Fernitz expects the center will turn over all its work to the Iraqis within six months. This year will be the last for Americans in the innovative Community Stabilization Program, which has helped set up some 700 small businesses, started the provincial soccer league and provided after-school sports, arts and vocational training for nearly 62,000 male youths from the age of 11.

The Iraqi army, with vital U.S. backup for now, is doing the bulk of the fighting, but probably just for a matter of months. Waiting to take over are the local police, who U.S. commanders say are improving from their low during the 2005 election when they disintegrated. But they still widely viewed as corrupt and poorly trained.

"It is the police who will ultimately win or lose the city," says Molinari. "The army is just occupying it. Unless you get the police up and running, you are not going to get real security." Recommend Buzz Up IM del.icio.us Yahoo! Bookmarks (function() { /** * YUI function to get all elements by class name * getElementsByClass */ function getElementsByClass(className, tag, root) { tag = tag || ‘*‘; root = (typeof root == ‘string‘) ? document.getElementById(root) : root || document; var nodes = [], elements = root.getElementsByTagName(tag), re = new RegExp(‘(?:^|s+)‘ + className + ‘(?:s+|$)‘); for (var i = 0, len = elements.length; i < len; ++i) { if ( re.test(elements[i].className) ) { nodes[nodes.length] = elements[i]; } } return nodes; } /** * This code displays the expand button as the page loads. This prevents any lag in displaying * the button if the page takes a long time to load. If the user clicks the button before the page * loads then we just show the full story without animation. Thus, preventing the full implementation * from loading. */ var story = document.getElementById(‘yn-story‘); var related = document.getElementById(‘yn-story-related-media‘); var expandCookie = ‘0‘; if ( // make sure read-more-toggle flag exists (story && story.className.indexOf(‘read-more-toggle‘) != -1) && // if user preference is 0 then collapse story expandCookie == ‘0‘ && // make sure hash is not set window.location.hash!=‘#full‘ ) { var buttonHeight = 18; var defaultHeight = 406; var heightLimit = 200; var host = document.location.host; var path = document.location.pathname; var bd = getElementsByClass(‘bd‘,‘div‘,story)[0]; // Figure out min height for story container based on the heights of the related media and primary media containers if (related) { // do height calculations if related height is larger than default minHeight if (related.offsetHeight > defaultHeight) { // if primary exists then use that height, otherwise use related var obj = getElementsByClass(‘primary-media‘,‘div‘,related)[0]; if (!obj) obj = related; // set height from primary or related container minHeight = parseInt(obj.offsetHeight, 10); // if the minheight is smaller than default, then set it to default if ( (minHeight < defaultHeight) && !document.getElementById(‘yn-story-main-media‘) && !document.getElementById(‘yn-story-minor-media‘) ) { minHeight = defaultHeight; } } else { minHeight = defaultHeight; } } else { minHeight = defaultHeight; } // add height of buttons to min height minHeight += buttonHeight; // make sure there is enough story to hide if ((bd.offsetHeight - minHeight) > heightLimit) { // set overflow and height bd.style.height = minHeight + "px"; bd.className += " overflow"; story.className += " read-closed"; // add read more expand button var div = document.createElement(‘div‘); div.className = ‘read-more read-more-expand‘; div.innerHTML = ‘Read Full Article‘; // we have to handle the case where a user might click the button before our YUI script loads // if so, remove the height and overflow setting then hide the button, also add #full hash to url so // if script eventually is loaded it doesnt recreate the buttons and collapse the story div.onclick = function(ev) { var e = ev || window.event; // show full story bd.style.height = ‘auto‘; bd.className = bd.className.replace(‘overflow‘,‘expanded‘); story.className = story.className.replace(‘read-closed‘,‘‘); // hide the toggle button div.className += ‘ hide‘; // disable link follow if (e.preventDefault) { e.preventDefault(); } else { e.returnValue = false; } } // add div to document bd.appendChild(div); } } })(); More on Iraq AP Bombers return to Fallujah as Iraq-US pact endorsed AFP AFP More... Video: Goodie bags with fishing gear for troops Video: Military Robot World Video: Harper addresses nation Most Viewed - World AP AP AP Fire in China company dorm kills 11, injures 10 AP AP All Most Viewed » Most Blogged - World Report: Israel Preparing to Strike Iran Without U.S. Consent FOX News – Thu Dec 4, 12:10 am EDT Blogs About This Story (5) Zimbabwe cholera ‘an emergency‘ BBC News – Thu Dec 4, 1:23 am EDT Blogs About This Story (4) World News from Times Online – Wed Dec 3, 6:33 pm EDT Blogs About This Story (3) Elsewhere on the Web Time.com: Why Mother-in-Law Problems Are Worse for Women McCl NPR: Mumbai Attacks Offer New Lessons On Terrorism Subscribe Add headlines to your personalized My Yahoo! page (About My Yahoo! and RSS) Middle East News - AP Add to My Yahoo! Iraq Add to My Yahoo! More News Feeds » Alerts Get an alert when there are new stories about: Iraq U.S. military unit Mosul Provincial Reconstruction Team 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment Add Selected Alerts Also on Yahoo! News News by Region (Yahoo! Directory) Yahoo! News & Media Sites Daily Features All Comics » Opinions & Editorials: Diverse views on news from the right, left, and center. All Opinion » Photo Highlight

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