Report: Military releasing 'former insurgents' detained for attacking coalition forces as part of handshake deals for support

Left: 'Former' insurgents with the 1920 Revolutionary Brigades cross a river near the city of Buhriz this month looking for al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia fighters with the support and encouragement of the U.S. military.

U.S. forces in Iraq are striking a variety of "handshake agreements" with Iraqi insurgents and militia groups, sometimes resulting in the release of fighters detained for attacking coalition forces, U.S. military officials said in several recent interviews.

Such informal deals mark a significant tactical shift in the Iraq war and represent a potentially risky effort to enlist former U.S. foes in the battle against hard-line militants. Despite a White House report last week concluding that a formal amnesty initiative would be "counterproductive" for Iraq today, U.S. military officials in Iraq believe that successful counterinsurgency campaigns almost always involve some form of forgiveness as a means to ending the fighting and achieving political reconciliation.

Though no formal arrangement exists for granting amnesty to insurgents, the current deals amount to a kind of don't-ask-don't-tell pardon system. U.S. forces cooperate with former enemies in exchange for information about roadside bombs, weapons caches and sanctuaries of al-Qaeda in Iraq, the mainly Iraqi group that has sought to intensify the country's low-level civil war.

Read the rest at the Washington Post

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