"The graduation of nearly 1,000 new Iraqi army soldiers in restive Anbar province took a disorderly turn Sunday when dozens of the men declared that they would refuse to serve outside their home areas, according to U.S. and Iraqi military authorities.

The graduation ceremony at Camp Habbaniyah, a base about 45 miles west of Baghdad, had been going well. The 978 soldiers, most of them Sunni Muslims, had just finished nearly five weeks of military training and were parading before a review stand to the sounds of martial music. They took an oath of service while U.S. and Iraqi officials delivered speeches hailing the event as an important step toward the formation of a national army.

Then some soldiers started tearing their clothes off to demonstrate their rage.

The protest was triggered by an announcement that the new soldiers, all residents of Anbar province -- widely considered the heartland of Iraq's Sunni Arab insurgent movement -- would be required to serve outside their home towns and outside the province as well.

Recruiting Sunnis into the army has been a key goal of U.S. policies to rebuild the Iraqi armed forces. Sunday's ceremony for the first group out of a total of 5,000 men recruited from Anbar represented major progress in that effort. But army commanders worry that if the men serve in their own home towns, they could be co-opted by insurgents (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/01/AR2006050100854.html)."

:upyours:

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Maybe they'd appreciate the creation of local Champagne Divisions!

http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/graphics/bush_serving_beer.jpg