Soldiers’ Online Chats Produce Valuable Army Knowledge, Colonel Says

By Kristen Noel
Special to American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, Feb. 15, 2008 – The Army is trying to capitalize on the practices of “digital natives” by creating online communities for soldiers to exchange information, with the hope of turning into servicewide knowledge, a senior officer said yesterday.
A series of online discussion forums within the password-protected Army Knowledge Online intranet gives soldiers with similar professional backgrounds the chance to have candid conversations, Army Col. James Galvin, director of the Battle Command Knowledge System, told online journalists and “bloggers” in a conference call.

Galvin explained that each forum is structured around a specific topic and is facilitated by a professional -- generally a retired officer or noncommissioned officer -- who worked in the career field the forum addresses.

For example, NCOs have a community called NCO-net with a facilitator from the U.S. Army Sergeants Major Academy, at Fort Bliss, Texas, in which senior NCOs very candidly exchange views and perspectives, Galvin said.

Soldiers share information and experiences, such as operating procedures and insights from experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan, on these online communities, Galvin said. As a result, he added, innovative ideas emerge from around the force.

The Army intends to codify information drawn out of these forums and use it for future reference material. “Ultimately, it gets distilled into doctrine, and we’ve got the doctrine development and writers here as well,” Galvin said.

“What we do is about bringing people together, managing processes, and doing that all by being enabled with technology,” he explained.

The Battle Command Knowledge System, which developed the online communities, was implemented as a pilot effort three and a half years ago at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., said Galvin, who is the program’s leader. The program soon will become part a larger Army knowledge-management endeavor.

Galvin said that on Feb. 13 Army Lt. Gen. William Caldwell, commander of Fort Leavenworth, announced the creation of a new Combined Arms Center Knowledge organization. The new organization will combine the Battle Command Knowledge System with several other knowledge programs, including the Center for Army Lessons Learned, the “Military Review” journal, a combat studies institute, and doctrine developers, he said.

“What we see is this value stream of knowledge from the online conversations that soldiers can have in the communities we provide to the other end of the spectrum, being the fully distilled and well-articulated enduring principles of doctrine,” Galvin said. “So, it’s exciting that we’re a part of a larger, growing endeavor.”

(Kristen Noel works for the New Media branch of American Forces Information Service.)

Very good and useful analysis.

With any revolutionary state, the original leadership generation ages out, usually without grace and with plenty of regrets. They see what could have been and what it's turned out to be. They look back over past decisions, and realize they would have done things differently if given the chance again to rule. They typically split across two impulses: 1) they should have been more stringent re: the revolution; and 2) they should have moved more decisively to normalize the revolution's relationship with the outside world.

In China, for example, you saw both of these impulses with Mao: the Cultural Revolution and yet the opening to America, with his fear of the Sovs being a prime reason why Zhou and he started that process with Nixon. When, during their famous one-time F2F, the Great leader was prompted by Nixon to brag about how much he had changed the Chinese nation, Mao demurred, claiming that he had only changed bits and pieces in Beijing alone without really effectively any lasting transformation across the country. You could say he was being modest, but judging by how fast Deng resurrected the society's natural capitalist tendencies just a few years later, the harsh truth is that Maoism didn't take in China whatsoever, and in his old age Mao admitted as much to himself.

The aging cleric elite in Iran have reached similar conclusions about the Iranian revolution. They know it has failed. They see the ruination of the faith in society, primarily because of their own politicization of it (the fastest way to ruin faith). They realize that cutting the country off from globalization in general and the U.S. in particular has backfired. Iran's economy is in shambles. People are unhappy. There is a profound birth dearth and brain drain (the latter being the worst in the world, according to the World Bank). They would do things differently, if given the chance.

Unfortunately, they won't be given that chance.

The post-revolutionary generation has basically taken over, with two wings emerging (as I've noted in past posts over the last couple of years): one is associated with Ahmadinejad and the other is associated with Larijani (cited in this piece) and Ghalibef (the current mayor of Tehran, not mentioned in this piece).

Ahmadinejad's "principalists" want the revolution revived, and so they are called hardliners, but the technocrats have the same desire, so you begin to see the disutility of that term. In reality, both wings want to revitalize the revolution, albeit in different ways.

In Chavez-like, oil-fueled populism, Ahmadinejad promises much and delivers little across his presidency. As was noted a while back in a great WSJ analysis, Ahmadinejad has gone to great lengths to strengthen the power of the presidency, his aim being to create a non-mullah-based political party. By this article's analysis, he seems to be succeeding. But as we know from many analyses of the associated Revolutionary Guards mafia, they're a fairly parasitic bunch who, if given free reign, would surpass the corruption of previous ruling groups. Already, the Guards exist primarily to gain as much control of the economy as possible--a naturally self-interested and self-perpetuating nomenklatura in the best Soviet sense. Rhetorically, the Ahmadinejad crew talk a great game, but in execution, they accomplish nothing beyond intimidation accompanied by propaganda. Failing at home to maintain any real devotion, they externalize the revolution by seeking satellites and emphasizing foreign threats. "We will bury you!" we are constantly told. Oh yeah, and every so often at home we see campaigns of orthodoxy that go nowhere but serve simply to remind the masses who's in control.

The other wing is poorly covered in this article, and we have seen in recent Western press coverage two opinions of how strong it is, relative to the principalists. Many analyses suggest Ahmadinejad's crew is losing the Supreme Leader's support, suggesting that the Larijani/Ghalibef wing will attain power in 2009. This article suggests that the Ahmadinejad crowd is playing for the long haul, and doing fairly well.

A few things seem relatively clear to me:

Again, the clerics of the old guard are on their way out. Rafsanjani holds some king-making power in his position as head of the Assembly of Experts, but it's not clear how he actualizes that power, absent the Supreme Leader dropping dead. Of course, Rafsanjani, in his Andropov-like role, might re-emerge in supporting a Gorby-like technocratic revitalizer like Ghalibef to the presidency. What might happen then? Remember, Gorby did not begin, nor ever imagine himself to be, a reformer--but a revitalizer. I think the same will be true of the Larijani/Ghalibef wing. They will claim themselves to be revitalizers and updaters of the revolution, just like Ahmadinejad's crew does, but with very different tactics in mind. The technocrats tend to want to avoid unnecessary conflict, both at home and abroad (too inefficient), whereas the populists thrive on it, largely to cover up their personal greed (the Guards) and to cover up their economic incompetence (Ahmadinejad).

This duality can play out for quite some time: whenever the principalists are more powerful, they have to cover up their inefficiency with crackdowns, so they advance the revolution little. In contrast, the technocrats, whenever they have the upper hand, inevitably suffer all sorts of backstabbing activities from the ideologues, who can independently act to sour relations with the outside world. So until this or the next Supreme Leader decides to favor one group over the other for a sufficiently long time for them to gain supremacy (not good for the Supreme Leader, one thinks), a rough balancing means we watch Iran muddle through for quite some time in its Brezhnevian economic stupor.

Whether or not the Ghalibef wing takes the presidency in 2009, the Supreme Leader seems to be encouraging a sort of permanent competition between these two wings, in rough approximation of a ruling-versus-opposition-party dynamic with, of course, the Supreme Leader himself deciding when the two wings switch ruling status.

But again, it seems clear the Supreme Leader will likewise not allow the old clerics and their reformism back into the game, as evidence by this latest election, meaning we're firmly into the second-generation phase of the revolution, and we're looking at a long duel between these two successor wings: ideologues versus technocrats.

Fascinating stuff that shows, in my opinion, that Iran's revolution is hardly unique or unknowable or "irrational." Instead we see the same old, same old: corrupt ideologues versus less corrupt technocrats. Both think they can revitalize the failed revolution, and both are wrong. But with oil prices lubricating the regime's failures so nicely, the outcome of this yin-and-yang-like struggle may go on for a while, meaning we better be ready to seize our chances for soft-kill strategies when the technocrats are in power.

That, and we should pray for the Supreme Leader's imminent demise.

In the end, though, none of this changes my thinking on the mistakes of the Bush administration in rerunning the whole WMD drama with Tehran and buying the regime's intransigence on both Afghanistan and Iraq--plus Lebanon/Palestine. That strategy has cost a lot of American lives, I would wager, and to no good end. We get nothing with this strategy except a strengthening of Ahmadinejad's crowd. Iran, as I have noted for years now, gets the bomb anyway, and we get nothing in return for having destroyed their two worst enemies in the region pre-9/11, except more tail-wagging-the-dog dynamics from Saudi Arabia and Israel that push us into even more pointless confrontation with Iran. Why do I say pointless? Our disconnecting strategy cannot trump the combined connecting strategies of Russia, India and China. So the more we push, the more time (and lives) and opportunity we waste.

Instead, we need to take a page out of the Reagan-Gorby dialogue, because it was really both sides that "denied" the other its enemy. By getting all chummy in the final years, Reagan made Gorby confident enough to start pulling the thread of change that finally did in the long-fragile USSR. Can we hope to emulate that Reaganesque mix of strength and engagement (exactly what Fallon argues for)? Hard right now when we're so tied down in both Iraq and Afghanistan, so truth is, we need more FDR-like slipperiness than Reagan's square-jawed optimism. Then again, the time for any such clever diplomacy may already be gone, thanks to the Bush-Cheney legacy of sheer incompetence in Afghanistan and Iraq, and that's why I worry the White House still dreams of starting a war with Iran before leaving. How else to break a strategic stalemate that deteriorates over the long haul? Having made Iran the regional kingpin, Bush-Cheney may be too tempted to try and suddenly reverse this outcome in its final months, thus locking the next president into an even more circumscribed pathway in the region, which, of course, would mean everybody there gets to abuse us further and longer, while other rising powers take advantage elsewhere around this world.

Isn't it amazing how the neocon primacy-defenders have, in their operational incompetency and strategic myopia, so radically hastened the loss of the very thing they sought so vociferously to defend? Kori Schake, Bush NSC vet, makes this basic point in the current National Journal.

Iran's Clerical Old Guard Being Pushed Aside
By Thomas Erdbrink
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, February 11, 2008; A01

TEHRAN -- After Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's followers toppled a U.S.-backed autocracy in Iran, he brought to power a coterie of politically engaged clerics who sought to create the world's first Islamic republic. Nearly 30 years later, a new generation of politicians is sweeping aside those clerics, many of whom had become proponents of better relations with the West and gradual steps toward greater democracy.

The newcomers are former military commanders, filmmakers and mayors, many younger than 50 and only a few of them clerics. They are vowing to carry out the promises of the revolution and to place Iran among the world's leading nations. This rising generation has the support of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, supreme leader in Iran's political system, who backs the government's assertive foreign and nuclear policies.

Last month, local election councils disqualified scores of clerics and their allies -- including Khomeini's grandson, Ali Eshragi -- from seeking election to parliament March 14. Such candidates have been disqualified before, but analysts said the absence of members of the clerical old guard from other institutions of power in Iran means they will find it difficult to mount an electoral comeback.

"These newcomers are pushing the followers of the imam out of power," said cleric and political veteran Rasoul Montajabnia, using an honorific to refer to Khomeini. "We are being dealt with disloyally."

Analysts say the purging of those clerics strengthens President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the most prominent leader of the new generation, and will result in a smaller political class that is more beholden to the supreme leader and less tolerant of even internal dissent.

"The newcomers don't have the same power base as the old guard," said Mehrdad Serjooie, a political analyst and former journalist. "They have no reputation dating from the time of the revolution, no direct access to oil money and no important supporters.

"The old factions often could operate more independently because they were powerful" in their own right, Serjooie added. "The new generation depends more on the leader."

Khamenei two weeks ago publicly vetoed a decision by Ahmadinejad to ignore certain laws passed by parliament. "This was a signal to show who is in charge," Serjooie said.

The newcomers say their emergence is part of a generational change. "For the last 30 years we have seen the same names in Iranian politics. It was natural that clerics took control of the country's affairs after they led the revolution, but as time goes by it's natural that younger non-clerics take over," said Saeed Aboutaleb, 37, a member of parliament since 2004.

He said clerics would remain important. "We need them for guidance, just as the late Imam Khomeini wanted. In the end, this is just a change in clothes," he added, referring to the overcoat and turban worn by clerics and the suits worn by younger politicians. "The newcomers are just as religious."

If the clerics have a chance at regaining the political prominence they enjoyed in the years following the 1979 revolution, analysts say, it will be under the leadership of former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, an ayatollah and former close aide to Khomeini who lost the presidential election to Ahmadinejad in 2005.

During Rafsanjani's two terms in the 1990s, his faction controlled several important executive and economic institutions in Iran, among them the Oil Ministry. He helped bring cleric Mohammad Khatami to power as his successor in 1997.

Khatami's supporters, known here as reformists, included many onetime revolutionaries, such as former students who came to regret their 1979 takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, which led to the severing of ties between Iran and the United States. Rafsanjani's political allies teamed with the reformists and together they began arguing that Islamic law is dynamic and adaptable. They also favored reestablishing relations with the United States through compromise and proposed minor democratic reforms. Later, political fights broke out between the two groups.

Although they held executive power, Khatami and his supporters were prevented from carrying out most of their plans by the judiciary and the Guardian Council, a 12-member body that answers to the supreme leader. Both were dominated by opponents of relations with the United States and of political or religious change.

Most of the candidates disqualified last month belong to Khatami's broad reformist coalition, which sought to compete with the newcomers in this year's parliamentary elections. The Guardian Council is considering appeals and will announce its decisions March 5.

Rafsanjani's supporters, whom the newcomers have accused of corruption, a lack of revolutionary zeal and even spying, decided not to stand in the upcoming elections, although they have not given an explanation.

"We believe we should open the atmosphere in the country, give more freedom and practice detente in the international arena. The newcomers are dogmatic and don't believe in the wishes of the people," said Montajabnia, the cleric, who is a member of the National Trust Party and part of the reformist coalition. "This is a power struggle for the political direction of this country."

The struggle began almost four years ago with the surprise election to parliament of a majority representing the newcomers, and it continued with Ahmadinejad's presidential victory and the subsequent replacement of tens of thousands of experienced government managers.

The newcomers, some of whom had spent years in secondary positions in the Iranian system but had no prominent role in the revolution, have taken over important positions traditionally held by clerics. Gholam Ali Haddad Adel, a former student of physics and deputy minister of education, became the first non-cleric to head parliament following the 2004 election.

The top negotiator on nuclear issues, cleric Hassan Rowhani, was replaced by Ali Larijani, a former head of Iranian state television. Larijani was replaced in October by Saeed Jalili, another non-cleric and a close ally of Ahmadinejad.

Among the newcomers are a few clerics, almost all of whom studied at a religious school in the holy city of Qom known for its strict interpretation of Islam.

Ahmadinejad's faction, which calls itself "principalist," consists of newcomers who say they want to act according to the principles of Islam and the revolution. Many members are former commanders in Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps, a force created after 1979 to protect the revolution. Members of another, more technocratic group have similar ideals and backgrounds but are at odds with the government on how to implement those principles. Larijani, who is seeking election to parliament, is emerging as the head of that faction.

"After a purge, the remaining faction divides. The split in the newcomers group will finally result in two main new groups in Iranian politics," said Iraj Jamshidi, political editor at Etemaad newspaper.

The newcomers say the politicians who preceded them haven't realized the goals of the revolution. "There has been a lot of abuse of power," said Aboutaleb.

Jamshidi, whose newspaper is considered reformist, said the "clerics who used to hold high positions are being held responsible for the current problems in Iran."

Still, Rafsanjani holds one last trump card. In September he was chosen as chairman of the Assembly of Experts, an elected council of 86 clerics that selects, supervises and can dismiss the supreme leader.

"We don't know what's happening in the assembly," Serjooie said. "But we can be sure the new generation is now trying to get as many other institutions as possible under their influence, to cement their newly attained power."

Jamshidi said there is little likelihood that the cleric-politicians who gained power after the revolution will rebuild their standing. "They are not a part of the decision-making process anymore," he said. "I don't see any chance of a comeback."

European Libyan Policy is Cynical

by Michael Rubin
Bitterlemons International
February 28, 2008
http://www.meforum.org/article/1862

In December 2007, Libyan strongman Muammar Qadhafi toured Europe, triumphant. No longer an international outcast, he received a statesman's welcome. Feted by President Nicolas Sarkozy at the Elysee Palace, he could ignore slights by Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner. After all, Kouchner may have refused to dine with him, but Qadhafi still walked away with nearly $15 billion in new contracts. Across Europe, Qadhafi's pariah status is a fading memory.

European leaders highlight their rehabilitation of Libya as evidence that their policy of slow, deliberative engagement works. On October 11, 2004, for example, the European Union's Council of Ministers, citing Tripoli's willingness to surrender its WMD program and compensate victims for Libya's past terrorism, agreed to lift the trade and arms embargo against Libya. Explaining the move, European Commission Ambassador Marc Pierini credited "the constant and confident dialogue entertained by Colonel Muammar Qadhafi and President Romano Prodi during these decisive years."

The European engagement was a decade long. In 1995, European foreign ministers meeting in Barcelona launched the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership that sought to establish political and security dialogue, gradually establish a free trade zone and encourage civil society. The European Union initially excluded Libya but, four years later, the EU Presidency invited Libyan observers to attend a follow-up conference in Stuttgart. There, they extended Libya an offer of membership upon the lifting of UN sanctions and the Libyan government's acquiescence to existing Barcelona protocols.

European policy is cynical, however, based more on a desire to promote trade and constrain African migration to the Schengen zone, and less on any human rights or political reform concerns. Qadhafi may be the guest of honor in European capitals, but any change in the Libyan leader or his regime is more illusionary than real. While European officials and their US counterparts recast Libya as an integrated member of the international community, Qadhafi's attitudes toward terrorism and human rights remain unchanged.

Take terrorism: In 2004, as European officials welcomed Qadhafi on his first trip to Europe in 15 years and discussed his rehabilitation, the colonel reminded them of what he would do if they did not meet his demands. Standing beside Prodi, the Libyan leader warned: "We do hope that we shall not be obliged or forced one day to go back to those days where we bomb our cars or put explosive belts around our beds and around our women." Diplomats can claim the Libyan leader has had a change of heart but, for Qadhafi, terrorism remains on the menu of acceptable options should European bribery or diplomacy prove less than fruitful.

The Libyan regime's renunciation of terrorism was never substantive. As the Libyan government negotiated payments to victims of the Pan Am flight 103 and UTA 772 bombings, Tripoli funneled money to Abu Sayyaf terrorists in the Philippines, swelling the group's ranks and increasing the frequency and lethality of its attacks. More recently Iraqi officials reported that Seif al-Islam, the Libyan leader's son and the face of reform at European cocktail parties, financed a group responsible for bombings and dozens of deaths in Mosul.

Qadhafi's conversion on human rights has been no more sincere. He released five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor held on fabricated charges not because European engagement had encouraged a change of heart, but rather because European officials arranged a ransom payment of $400 million and Paris agreed to ship advanced weaponry and even nuclear technology to the North African state. That the arrangement allowed Qadhafi to draw moral equivalency between airline bombings and Bulgarian nurses seeking to help Libyan children should embarrass European diplomats for decades.

Europe's willingness to prioritize commercial ties above any other consideration also undercuts international efforts to prosecute war crimes. As former Liberian President Charles Taylor awaits judgment in The Hague, the Special Court for Sierra Leone has uncovered evidence that Qadhafi trained and underwrote the forces that most victimized civilians. European willingness to exculpate such criminality for a cash payment makes a mockery of its human rights rhetoric. Even as European statesmen and company chairmen visit Tripoli to sign lucrative contracts, Fathi Eljhami, Libya's leading advocate of political reform, remains in solitary confinement, unacknowledged in Brussels.

Libya has not changed, US and European testaments to the contrary notwithstanding. Today, Brussels and Washington both hold Libya up as a success, either for engagement or the Bush doctrine. Reality matters. Turning a blind eye, however, to the falsity of reform is dangerous. Not only does Qadhafi continue to sponsor terror and violate human rights, the mercurial leader may at any time use the European injection of cash and technology to resurrect his weapons programs. Failure will not be limited to Libya, however. Rogues like Syria, Iran, and North Korea now understand that western demands are ephemeral and delay will pay.

Michael Rubin, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, is editor of the Middle East Quarterly.

Sunni Forces Losing Patience With U.S.
Citing Lack of Support, Frustrated Iraqi Volunteers Are Abandoning Posts
By Sudarsan Raghavan and Amit R. Paley
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, February 28, 2008; A01

BAGHDAD, Feb. 27 -- U.S.-backed Sunni volunteer forces, which have played a vital role in reducing violence in Iraq, are increasingly frustrated with the American military and the Iraqi government over what they see as a lack of recognition of their growing political clout and insufficient U.S. support.

Since Feb. 8, thousands of fighters in restive Diyala province have left their posts in order to pressure the government and its American backers to replace the province's Shiite police chief. On Wednesday, their leaders warned that they would disband completely if their demands were not met. In Babil province, south of Baghdad, fighters have refused to man their checkpoints after U.S. soldiers killed several comrades in mid-February in circumstances that remain in dispute.

Some force leaders and ground commanders also reject a U.S.-initiated plan that they say offers too few Sunni fighters the opportunity to join Iraq's army and police, and warn that low salaries and late payments are pushing experienced members to quit.

The predominantly Sunni Awakening forces, referred to by the U.S. military as the Sons of Iraq or Concerned Local Citizens, are made up mostly of former insurgents who have turned against extremists because of their harsh tactics and interpretation of Islam. The U.S. military pays many fighters roughly $10 a day to guard and patrol their areas. Thousands more unpaid volunteers have joined out of tribal and regional fealties.

U.S. efforts to manage this fast-growing movement of about 80,000 armed men are still largely effective, but in some key areas the control is fraying. The tensions are the most serious since the Awakening was launched in Anbar province in late 2006, according to Iraqi officials, U.S. commanders and 20 Awakening leaders across Iraq. Some U.S. military officials say they are growing concerned that the Sunni insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq has infiltrated Awakening forces in some areas.

"Now, there is no cooperation with the Americans," said Haider Mustafa al-Kaisy, an Awakening commander in Baqubah, the capital of Diyala province, an insurgent stronghold that U.S. and Iraqi forces are still struggling to control. "We have stopped fighting al-Qaeda."

U.S. military officials and commanders say they are seeking to defuse the rising tensions before hard-won U.S. gains are jeopardized. "Despite some of the frustrations, the frictions and the attacks on the Sons of Iraq, they are continuing to volunteer. As an interim solution, it seems to be working well," said Col. Bill Buckner, a senior U.S. military spokesman. "It's clear Iraq remains a fragile security environment. We want to address many of their concerns as best as we can, so that they continue to be part of the solution to the security situation in Iraq."

Growing Threats
Awakening leaders say threats against their fighters are rising. Attacks against Awakening members went from 26 in October to 100 in January, according to a U.S. military official, who added that February's numbers are on track to be nearly as high as January's.

But the growing threats have not been matched with added resources. Rafah Kassim, 37, an Awakening leader in the oil-producing city of Baiji, lost two fighters in mid-February when gunmen ambushed their car. Speaking at their funeral, Kassim said he did not expect the Shiite-led Iraqi government, which fears the Awakening movement could one day turn against it, to embrace his fighters. He had applied six times to join the Iraqi army and police, he said, but was never accepted. He said he expected his new ally, the U.S. military, to back his struggle. Instead, he said, U.S. commanders have limited his force to 40 fighters when he needs at least 100 to protect his area of 2.7 square miles.

"They should make me stronger. They should not weaken me," said Kassim, a former commander in the Islamic Army, an insurgent group. "We need weapons. We need vehicles. We do not even have gas for the few cars we have. When we joined, the Americans promised to provide all necessities. Now we know those were only words."

In the past two months, he said, 20 of his fighters have quit. Many felt their monthly salary was no longer worth the risk of fighting al-Qaeda in Iraq. His men also have not received their salaries in two months, he said. "We'll all be patient for another two months. If nothing changes, then we'll suspend and quit," Kassim said. "Then we'll go back to fighting the Americans."

'Why Am I Standing There?'
Inadvertent U.S. killings of Awakening fighters -- five such incidents have occurred in the past three weeks -- are adding to the frustrations. In the southern town of Jurf al-Sakr, U.S. soldiers killed three fighters Feb. 15. U.S. commanders said that the men had fired upon the soldiers first and that the troops acted in self-defense.

Within hours, more than 1,000 fighters walked away from their posts. Sabah al-Janabi, who heads the Awakening in the area, publicly criticized the U.S. military, alleging it had killed 19 of his men in the past 45 days, which U.S. commanders deny.

"Now, I have fighters who refuse to go back to their positions," said Fadhil Youssef, another Awakening leader in the area. "They are saying, 'I am standing on road, securing my neighborhood, and Americans come and kill me. So why am I standing there?' "

In the village of Zaab, west of the northern city of Kirkuk, police officials and witnesses said U.S. forces on Feb. 14 killed six relatives of an Awakening leader, Issa Muhsin al-Jubouri, and detained him and others. In an interview last week, after his release, he said U.S. soldiers had "raised their weapons in my face and shouted at me, 'Confess or I will shoot you.'

"They beat me and cursed me and made me face the wall, saying to me, 'You have exploited the Awakening to support the terrorists,' " Jubouri said. "I kept saying, 'You are mistaken, because I and my family have been victims of terrorists.' "

U.S. military officials confirmed that six people, including two women, were killed, among them several Awakening members, and that a dozen were detained. But the officials said U.S. troops were targeting al-Qaeda in Iraq and acted in self-defense after being fired upon. When asked about Jubouri's allegations, Maj. Brad Leighton, a U.S. military spokesman, replied: "It's combat. I would not expect our guys to be gentle when conducting an operation on a place where we suspect there are terrorists."

The incidents illustrate a vexing problem for the American military: The Awakening movement has grown so fast that it has become difficult for U.S. commanders to monitor the fighters and their loyalties.

"It's clear there are extremist groups that have penetrated the Concerned Local Citizens, that there may be in fact al-Qaeda amongst the Concerned Local Citizens," said Rear Adm. Gregory J. Smith, a senior military spokesman.

Jubouri said his 800 fighters had taken huge risks to ally with the U.S. military and faced allegations that they are "agents for the Americans."

"If there is no apology, or no compensation, or failure to produce the informers before us, we will carry arms against the Americans," Jubouri said.

Demands in Diyala
Nowhere are the tensions more serious than in Diyala, one of the major battlegrounds in the U.S. fight against al-Qaeda in Iraq. Awakening groups, also known here as Popular Committees, are demanding the resignation of the Shiite provincial police chief, Maj. Gen. Ghanem al-Qureishi. They accuse him of running death squads and torturing Sunnis, allegations that Qureishi denied in an interview. The Awakening leaders are also seeking recognition as an official force.

On Wednesday, they vowed to dissolve the committees if their demands were not met. "In the last 10 months, we haven't received any kind of assistance or help from Americans or Iraqi government," said Abu Talib, a top Awakening leader. "On the contrary, the police started to hunt us down."

Interior Minister Jawad al-Bolani said that Qureishi was highly valued and that such "good men" would be protected. "An accusation does not mean the crime actually took place," Bolani said.

The U.S. military acknowledges that it is caught in the middle of a political struggle. "Yes, they are frustrated," said Lt. Col. Ricardo Love, commander of the 1st Battalion, 38th Infantry Regiment, who works in Baqubah, the provincial capital. "They think we can make the government of Iraq do anything. We tell them we don't control the government. But they think we are the mighty power."

"The position of Americans is hesitation," said Abu Imad al-Zuhaidi, another Awakening official in Baqubah. "They don't have any independent opinion, despite the fact they know it is the Awakening who restored order."

U.S. commanders said the Awakening's strike has not affected security, but Love and others are concerned about fighters who may be tempted, or forced, to rejoin the insurgency.

"AQI and JAM will take advantage of the situation," he said, using military abbreviations for al-Qaeda in Iraq and the Mahdi Army, the country's largest Shiite militia, which is loyal to anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.

In Baghdad and other parts of Iraq, concern is mounting over a U.S. proposal that calls for about 20 percent of the volunteer forces to be integrated into the nation's army and police. The rest would be provided with civilian jobs and vocational training.

"The Sunnis were always the leaders of the country. Is it reasonable that they are turned into service workers and garbage collectors?" said Khalid Jiyad Abed, an Awakening leader in the city of Latifiyah and an engineer. "We had not anticipated this from the American forces. Of course we will not accept that," Abed added.

Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, who for the past 14 months was the second-ranking U.S. commander in Iraq, said only 20 to 30 percent of the Awakening fighters could pass physical and written exams to enter Iraq's security forces.

"Overall, you will never satisfy everybody," Odierno said, adding that 10,000 fighters had been accepted so far.

But Awakening leaders view the plan as an attempt by the Iraqi government to marginalize them.

"This is a big failure -- either they take us all in or this is not going to work," said Brig. Gen. Shija al-Adhami, who heads the Awakening force in Baghdad's Ghazaliya neighborhood.

Sami al-Askari, an adviser to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, said recruiting too many Awakening fighters would allow al-Qaeda in Iraq to infiltrate the security forces, in much the same way Shiite militias have. But Sunni leaders warn that without the Awakening's help in securing the country, Iraq's future will be grim.

"You need these people," said Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi, a Sunni. "What sort of risk are you going to take if this 100 percent is stripped to 20? We cannot afford to lose all this success, which is paid by the blood of the people."

Special correspondents Zaid Sabah, Saad al-Izzi and K.I. Ibrahim in Baghdad and Washington Post staff in Diyala province, Anbar province, Najaf, Tikrit, Baiji, Kirkuk and Mosul contributed to this report.