Report: Bush approves more money to Sunnis in end-run around Maliki

Above: A Sunni 'volunteer', possibly a 'former insurgent' patrols with U.S.-support in the Adhamiyah district of Baghdad in August.

President George W. Bush, marshaling his arguments to maintain current troop levels in Iraq, has approved the acceleration of a new program to intensify economic assistance directly to Sunni Arab regions where former insurgents have joined U.S. forces in fighting extremist Sunni groups, senior U.S. officials say...

The shift is focused on Anbar province, once a hotbed of attacks on U.S. forces, where local Sunni militias have now turned against the homegrown insurgent group, Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, and its allies and are increasingly receiving support, within informal "neighborhood watch" groups, directly from U.S. troops...

Bush and his commanders weighed whether to reward the Sunnis with early provincial elections that would restore a degree of political power to them. But calling elections is no longer within the power of the United States, and the Shiite-dominated national government of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki has long opposed empowering the Sunnis.

They also discussed ways to pressure Maliki to provide millions of dollars in Iraqi funds, much of it oil money, for reconstruction of Anbar's schools and health care centers and the reopening of state-run factories.

"This is all about finding ways to circumvent al-Maliki," said one senior official who is involved.

Read the rest at the International Herald Tribune

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