By Tim Cocks BAGHDAD, Sept 26 (Reuters) - Iraq's government must find jobs for tens of thousands of mainly Sunni Arab patrolmen after it takes responsibility for them next week, or al Qaeda may try to recruit them, a senior U.S. commander said on Friday. The Shi'ite-led government is set to take over responsibility for the U.S.-led "Sons of Iraq" programme, beginning with 54,000 patrol members in and around Baghdad on Oct. 1. U.S. forces credit the programme, in which many former members of Sunni Arab insurgent groups have joined a 100,000-strong force of armed neighbourhood patrols, with helping reduce violence in Baghdad and across Iraq. "This cannot be something that's allowed to fail," the commander of U.S. forces in Baghdad, Major-General Jeffrey Hammond, told a news conference. "If the programme were to fail, obviously these guys would be back out on the street, angry, al Qaeda out recruiting them ... We don't need that." "The sons of Iraq have paid a heavy price for fighting al Qaeda and other insurgent groups and it's important the government transitions them to meaningful employment, and they've committed to that responsibility." The U.S. military currently pays patrol members about $300 a month. Iraq says it has room in its army and police to give security jobs only to about 20 percent of the patrol members, but has pledged to help the rest train or find civilian jobs. Hammond said 96 percent of the 27,600 patrol members within the capital's city limits had registered with the programme to put them under government authority beginning Oct. 1. He said this was evidence they trust the programme. "They had a distrust. They weren't convinced (it) would be a fair process, (they thought) that they would in fact be targeted. I think by sheer virtue of the fact there's 96 percent registration, they have overcome that," he said. After years of sectarian violence some Sunni Arab patrol members say they fear retribution from Shi'ite-led authorities. "I don't trust the Iraqi government because I know they will want to hunt me tomorrow," Khalid al-Qaisi, a patrol leader in central Baghdad's Fadhil neighbourhood told Reuters. "Ninety-six percent registered doesn't mean that they trust the government. That is just to keep the right to man the streets of our neighbourhood." (Additional reporting by Khalid al-Ansary)
Demonstrators display anti-U.S. military placards during a protest in Kufa, 120 km (75 miles) south of Baghdad September 26, 2008. Placards read, "Iraq will not become a U.S. colony". REUTERS/Ali Abu ...
