PEACETIME IRAQ WILL NEED POLICE, NO?:

Top Shiite official in Iraq praises U.S.-backed Sunni groups (The Associated Press, January 3, 2008)

A top Shiite politician on Thursday acknowledged the contribution of U.S.-backed Sunni groups to the decline in violence across Iraq and called for their use in the continuing fight against Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia.

Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim's praise for the role of the groups, many of which had fought U.S. and Shiite-dominated security forces before switching sides last year, runs contrary to the hard-line position recently taken by Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki's government. [...]

Hakim, head of Parliament's largest bloc and the country's most powerful political party, was conciliatory in his comments Thursday, although his praise for the Sunni groups was moderate and he did not say whether their future role should be permanent.