The U.S. military will use its funds to "jump-start" the local forces in stages, U.S. officers said. Initially, the military will pay local residents who call in successful tips that turn up roadside bombs or weapons, or lead to the capture of insurgents. Next, it will identify residents for the security forces, vet their names and take their fingerprints, and require them to take an oath of loyalty to the government. Finally, it will train them in weapons usage and American "rules of engagement" and "put them on a key location" to provide security, Gibbs said.

Yet in districts such as Rasheed, where tensions run high between Shiite-dominated National Police forces, Shiite militias and residents of Sunni enclaves, some U.S. commanders say extreme caution will be required in introducing the armed neighborhood protection groups.

A chief concern for U.S. troops will be how to prevent intentional or accidental conflicts between the groups, said Lt. Col. George A. Glaze, commander of 1st Battalion, 18th Infantry Regiment, who oversees the Sadiyah neighborhood where the 250 Sunnis volunteered. "I see the firefight on the street corner" between Iraqi police and local forces, he said, "and I have to pick a side?"

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More than one influential Sunni in Rasheed indicated they had ambitions beyond securing their immediate neighborhood. "Our first priority is to go after al-Qaeda. Then we can support the Americans in fighting Jaish al-Mahdi," said one Sunni leader, referring to the Shiite militia that operates in the district. The Sunni leaders at the meeting requested anonymity for fear they would be targeted.

Lt. Gen. Aboud Qanbar, the Iraqi commander overseeing the five-month-old U.S.-Iraqi security plan, has given only verbal approval for Iraqi security forces to allow the new armed groups to operate unhindered in specific areas that he has visited, such as Abu Ghraib and Mansour, said Campbell, who escorted the Iraqi general to the areas.

A major obstacle is the lack of written orders recognizing the groups from the Interior and Defense ministries and the prime minister's office, he said.

Real integration?
Moreover, despite U.S. urging, the Interior Ministry has failed to approve the hiring of the neighborhood forces as full-fledged police officers, including more than 2,000 recently recruited from Abu Ghraib.

"The government of Iraq has to make some tough decisions. If they don't do this, we will lose out on a huge opportunity," Campbell said.

Two months ago, Petraeus created a "strategic engagement" committee, headed by a two-star British general, that oversees the outreach to grass-roots security groups and works with Iraqi government ministries to advance the process.

Some U.S. officers were not optimistic that the Iraqi government would ever put the local Sunni forces on the payroll. "Wild success is these guys being integrated into honest-to-God, badge-holding cops. That would be a magnificent sign," said one U.S. military officer in Baghdad. More likely, he said, the American military will "contract them as little Iraqi Blackwaters to guard their neighborhoods," he said, referring to a private U.S. security contractor. The worst outcome is that the forces will be actively targeted by the Iraqi government, he said.

Targeting the Sunni recruits would be easy for the government after their names are provided for vetting, Campbell said. "What we have to make sure is they don't take those names and turn around and say, 'Hey, this is our targeting list.' We're very cognizant of that."

In the Sunni enclave of Doura in east Rasheed, where sewage water floods the streets and electricity wires hang in disrepair, residents asked about their security problems offered that they believed a local force would best serve the neighborhood, long one of the most contested insurgent strongholds in Baghdad but now relatively calm after recent U.S. military operations.

"The best solution is the people who live here, who know the neighborhood, who know the bad people, they protect it," Ahmed Ali Hussein, a traffic police officer, said as he sat sweating in stifling 120-degree heat in his Doura home. But, he added, "we need some support from American forces like weapons, money, salary."

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