[R-G] Could Iris Scans Stop a New Iraq Insurgency?

[Anthony Fenton]

Could Iris Scans Stop a New Iraq Insurgency?
By Noah Shachtman EmailAugust 26, 2008 | 12:23:00 PMCategories:  
Biometrics, Iraq's Insanity
http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/08/maliki-vs-sois.htmlx

Iraq's government and Sunni militias appear to be headed for a  
showdown. One of the things that just might keep a full-blown  
insurgency from erupting again, a leading expert in the region says,  
is a set of databases of fingerprints and irises, built by the U.S.  
military -- and fed with data from Saddam.

The extra troops get all the credit, in the dumbed-down political  
debate. But one of the biggest reasons for Iraq's turnaround was the  
decision by Sunnis -- many of them former insurgents -- to begin  
backing the U.S., instead. They were organized into local militias,  
called "Sons of Iraq," and promised government jobs, in return for the  
service. And just to convince the Sunnis that American forces had  
their best interests at heart, we they fed 'em a steady diet of anti- 
Shi'a propaganda.

But the jobs never completely materialized. And Iraq's largely Shi'ite  
national government is slamming down on the Sons of Iraq, with  
apparently American backing. "Our goal is that by June 2009, the Sons  
of Iraq are out of business," Lt. Col. Jeffrey Kulmayer said over the  
weekend.

"It is obvious where this road might end," Shawn Brimley and Colin  
Kahl write in today's Los Angeles Times. "The last time tens of  
thousands of armed Sunni men were humiliated in Iraq -- by disbanding  
the Baath Party and Iraqi army in May 2003 -- an insurgency began,  
costing thousands of U.S. lives and throwing Iraq into chaos. Yet  
Maliki and his advisors risk provoking Iraq's Sunni community into  
another round of violence."

So what's to stop another Sunni insurgency from boiling over? After  
all, "it doesn't take 100,000 of these guys to revert to insurgents to  
cause big trouble. Remember, at the height of the insurgency, the U.S.  
estimated that there were 8,000-20,000 fighters," Kahl -- a Georgetown  
professor and a Center for a New American Security senior fellow --  
tells DANGER ROOM.

Well, The Government of Iraq can make good on its promises to hire  
these militiamen. Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki can hold provincial  
elections that give Sunnis a bigger stake in the political process.  
And Maliki can hope that the "high degree of 'conflict exhaustion'  
among Sunnis" stays high.

The Iraqi government has one other card to play, says Kahl, just back  
from the Middle East. Over the years, the American military in Iraq  
has assembled a series of biometric databases; hundreds of thousands  
of Iraqis' fingerprints and irises are stored inside. In Fallujah and  
other Sunni-dominated cities, the only way to get in or out is within  
a U.S.-issued badge, complete with this biometric info; that restricts  
potential insurgents' freedom of movement. The Sons of Iraq have also  
been iris- and fingerprint-scanned; that makes them easier to  
identify, if they're caught rejoining the insurgent team. Finally, the  
databases -- partially built on the backs on Saddam's crminal records  
-- "provides a useful enemies list to the Government of Iraq, if they  
chose to use it," Kahl says. That echoes what U.S. Army Lieutenant  
Colonel John Velliquette told DANGER ROOM last year, when he said that  
the biometric info becomes "a hit list if it gets in the wrong hands."  
Or the right ones.

[Photo: Air Force]