[ASC2006]

Sorry, but if you were to kill every Iraqi politician or tribal leader that ever did business with Iran or al-Qaeda there would be none left in Iraq.

The question is how do we help the tribes to build up local police forces as we did in Anbar.

[tobyhill]

It’s not us doing the killing of these tribal leaders, it’s Al-Qaeda, and that’s what I mean they should have never started any business with them. Al-Qaeda would always rather see a destroyed nation if they weren’t in control of that nation. The best way we can help is tell the tribal leaders to leave their areas with their people and we will mop up the area leaving them with a clean slate on their return. It may not be pretty but at least we can separate the good from bad.