Officials grapple with ethnic split in Iraqi forces

Good thing folks are slipping non-published reports to the press these days or we'd still be getting fed 'happy news' from Dubya Inc.:

"Sunni Arabs are heavily underrepresented among the rank and file of Iraq's new security forces, according to US officials, leaving the US-trained army and police units prone to the same sectarian divisions that have led to sharply increased violence among the general population in recent weeks.

"Sunnis make up less than 10 percent of the enlisted forces, just half their share of the country's overall population, and most units lack a mix of Sunnis, Shi'ite Muslims, and Kurds, according to Bush administration officials who cited recent statistics.

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"But the obstacles to creating a multisectarian force -- and the dangers of failing to do so -- were summed up in an analysis by the Congressional Research Service, which was completed earlier this year but not released to the public.

''There is concern that the ethnic-sectarian nature of the burgeoning insurgency is undermining US and Iraqi efforts to create a unified Iraqi security force that can prevent internal insurgent violence from metastasizing into a larger civil war," declared the analysis, obtained by the Globe last week."

More here:
http://www.boston.com/news/world/mid...forces?mode=PF