Naval postgraduate school monterey, california thesis approved for public release; distribution is unlimited

2. 
From Defeat to Engagement: the U.S. Military and Sunni Militias 
As with the Kurdish Peshmerga, Sunni militias were established along tribal lines.
Sunni militias grew out of the historical experience of the Bedouin tribes, for whom “it 
was the duty of all able-bodied men to join kinship militias” in order to ensure the 
“protection and survival” of the local tribe.
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However, after the invasion the Sunni 
population was much more skeptical about the future of Iraq than the Kurds, since the 
Sunnis had been the primary beneficiaries of Baath party largesse. The Sunni minority 
quickly became fearful that they would be marginalized by the Shia and Kurdish 
majority, which made them more susceptible to insurgent mobilization. Unlike Kurdish 
militias who were accepting of both the new Iraqi government and the Coalition, Sunni 
militias were skeptical of both the U.S.-led Coalition and the Shia-dominated Iraqi 
government. Because the U.S. knew that the Sunnis were distrustful and supported 
Saddam they were less inclined to try to work with them, or didn’t think there was any 
possibility of shared interests. That would also have reinforced the Sunni perceptions of 
the U.S. as an enemy. However, the fact that Sunnis and their militias did not whole-
heartedly accept the establishment of a government or the American occupation does not 
mean they were unwilling to negotiate. After the Iraqi Army was removed from Kuwait 
in 1991, Saddam lost control of 14 of 18 provinces. He reestablished control of the 
provinces by “subcontracting security to tribal chiefs who were given arms and authority 
to establish local militias.” Nevertheless, the U.S. was unwilling to engage Sunni militias 
and focused their efforts instead on the creation of state controlled security forces. In 
response militia members -- now considered “Sunni Rejectionists – joined the insurgency 
[used] these irregular methods of organizing and fighting” and also “adapted their 
traditional form of [guerilla warfare and tactics] to modern weapons and means.”
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Richard H. Shultz and Andrea J. Dew, 
Insurgents, Terrorists, and Militias: The Warriors of 
Contemporary Combat
(New York: Columbia University Press, 2006), 252. 
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Schultz and Dew, 253. 

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The Sunni insurgency includes former regime elements of the Baath party, tribal 
groups, foreign fighters, and Islamic extremists such as al Qaeda.
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Sunni tribes did not 
immediately join the insurgency, but instead waited to see what the future would hold.
Ultimately what the future held for most Sunnis in Iraq was a declining standard of 
living, and increasing insecurity as the Coalition strategy emphasized on kinetic military 
operations and did not seek to engage the tribal sheiks.
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Prior to the invasion, U.S. military units were specifically trained to fight in a 
high intensity, conventional operation. The overall strategy was to defeat the Iraqi army 
and redeploy. This reflected President George W. Bush’s commitment not to engage the 
U.S military in nation-building activities. During his 2000 presidential campaign he 
stated: “I would be very careful about using our troops as nation builders. I believe the 
role of the military is to fight and win war…I believe we’re overextended in too many 
places.”
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He continued to emphasize this strategy after the terrorist attacks on 
September 11, 2001. However Iraq’s post-conflict environment required the immediate 
employment of basic counterinsurgency and policing techniques, such as the non-violent 
engagement of local militias. Military units deployed to Iraq lacked this training. The 
U.S. military was not designed for post-conflict operations that involve soldiers engaging 
local leaders regarding subjects of governance, security, employment, basic service 
provision, etc. Given this and the absence of appropriate actors to undertake such 
engagement, military strategy remained kinetic, which ultimately alienated the population 
and encouraged them to ally with insurgent forces such as al Qaeda. Abdul Razak al 
Muaimi, a Sunni day laborer in his thirties, told a reporter that he chose to resist the 
occupation because of the way he was treated by Coalition forces. “U.S. soldiers 
searched my house. They kicked my Koran. They speak to me so poorly in front of my
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Hashim,