Signing Up Sunnis With 'Insurgent' on Their Résumés

An Iraqi 'Volunteer,' as U.S. troops call Sunni ex-insurgents working with them in western Baghdad, joins a U.S. unit preparing to search a house. Recruits also run checkpoints, point out al-Qaeda in Iraq fighters and locate weapons caches. (Photos By Petr David Josek -- Associated Press)

"They came, they broke our doors, beat our women and beat even a crippled guy who lost his leg. They beat them over the heads," Muhsin Ali al-Tamimi told a recent meeting of tribal leaders. "We have lost four cars and weapons and money and none of that has been returned to us."

Pinkerton said Tamimi has since vowed to cooperate with the Volunteers, and the group's leaders have disciplined those responsible for the raid.

In all, Pinkerton marshaled 2,400 men willing to become policemen, but the Interior Ministry agreed to accept 1,700 of them, at a salary of $600 a month. When it came time to enroll, Pinkerton realized that 23 percent of the names he had submitted had been changed by the Iraqi government -- raising his suspicion that officials want to disrupt his efforts. "Who are they?" he wondered. "And where'd they come from?"

Pinkerton acknowledged that real animosity lingers between the Volunteers and the Muthanna Brigade, which patrols Abu Ghraib. More than 1,000 citizens nearly rioted against the Muthanna Brigade in April when it came to arrest members of the Volunteers. The U.S. military intervened -- Pinkerton called in a British Tornado fighter jet to disperse the crowd -- and freed the detainees.

"If the American Army wants this area to be safe, they have to abolish the Muthanna Brigade," Qaisi said.

Iraqi army officers say they will arrest unofficial bands of gunmen on the street regardless of who they are or whether they are partners with the Americans.

"There is some sensitivity within the army about this subject," said Brig. Gen. Falah Hassan, a brigade commander in western Baghdad. "There are no orders to cooperate with the Volunteers. Some of them have hurt the army or the people."

Senior American military commanders often say they do not arm these groups. But two soldiers in Pinkerton's battalion said that when they find weapons caches, they often let the Volunteers keep AK-47 rifles and ammunition.

"We do that as a means to benefit them and to curry favor," one soldier said, on condition of anonymity. The soldier agreed that security had improved greatly in the area since the Volunteers began cooperating, but asked what would follow the defeat or ouster of al-Qaeda in Iraq: "I think there is some risk of them being Volunteers by day and terrorists by night."