From McClatchy Washington Bureau, via Atrios:

The American campaign to turn Sunni Muslims against Islamic extremists is growing so quickly that Iraq’s Shiite Muslim leaders fear that it’s out of control and threatens to create a potent armed force that will turn against the government one day.

The United States, which credits much of the drop in violence to the campaign, is enrolling hundreds of people daily in “concerned local citizens” groups. More than 5,000 have been sworn in in the last eight days, for a total of 77,542 as of Tuesday. As many as 10 groups were created in the past week, bringing the total number to 192, according to the American military.

U.S. officials said they were screening new members — who generally are paid $300 a month to patrol their neighborhoods — and were subjecting them to tough security measures. More than 60,000 have had fingerprints and DNA taken and had retinal scans, American officials said, steps that will allow them to be identified later, should they turn against the government. The officials said they planned to cap membership in the groups at 100,000.

But that hasn’t calmed mounting concerns among aides to Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki, who charge that some of the groups include “terrorists” who attack Shiite residents in their neighborhoods. Some of the new “concerned citizens” are occupying houses that terrified Shiite families abandoned, they said.

It also hasn’t quieted criticism that the program is trading long-term Iraqi stability for short-term security gains.

[...]

“There is a danger here that we are going to have armed all three sides: the Kurds in the north, the Shiite and now the Sunni militias,” said Bruce Riedel, a former CIA analyst who’s now at The Brookings Institution, a center-left policy organization in Washington, D.C.

[...]

“When the U.S. leaves, what we’ll have are two armies,” said Sami al Askari, a Shiite lawmaker who speaks to Maliki daily. “One who’s loyal to the government and one not loyal.”

[...]

The new groups are proliferating so quickly that some American officials are taken aback. Maj. Mark Brady, who deals with tribal engagement and reconciliation in Baghdad, lauded the program but described it as “building a plane while flying in it.”

So, let me get this straight. We’re training and arming an extra-governmental militia to fight all the other non-governmental militias in Iraq. Essentially, we aim to end sectarian violence by creating another sect.  What kind of sense does that make? It’s not even fighting fire with fire–it’s fighting fire with gasoline.

We’re at the tail end of the most violent year in Iraq since the war started. We’ve been in Iraq four and a half years. And this is the best we can come up with? A band-aid solution with a high probability of blowing up in our faces? It’s just been one failure after another in Iraq, thanks to the Bush administration and the Republican Party.