The coalition strategy appears to be working out deals with the many self-serving leaders who have always been out to make a deal with whomever is in power. Among these are the many tribal chiefs. The support of the tribes saved Saddam's power during the 1991 Shia/Kurd uprising, and have always maintained a degree of independence. The Kurds are still very cooperative. Among the Shias, some religious leaders are willing to work with the occupation forces, while the more fundamentalist ones are being cautioned by religious leaders in Iran to be careful. With civil war brewing in Iran, the Islamic conservatives there don't want the Iraqi Shia Islamic radicals returning from Iranian exile to give the Americans any incentive to get involved in Iranian politics. The most active opposition to the occupation troops is, as expected, the Sunni Arabs who provided the base of Saddam Hussein's support. The Sunnis have ruled the region for centuries and will lose much if there is democracy in Iraq. The Shias and Kurds are 80 percent of the population and have so many grudges against the Sunnis that few Sunnis would get elected, or much else, from the government. However, a disproportionate number of college trained Iraqis and skilled administrators and managers are Sunni Arabs. Most of these, unless they went into exile, were members of the Baath party, and thus tainted and barred from government jobs. But these Sunnis will continue to dominate the economy, and thus dominate politics via Shia or Kurd politicians they gain economic control over. But it will be a generation or more before another Sunni Arab runs the country.

June 8, 2003: American troops have gone into Sunni Arab areas, largely towns outside of Baghdad, where there is still armed resistance, and set up a busy schedule of aggressive patrols. Weapons searches and interrogations of suspects brings in more information about who is in the resistance. Many of these men were active in Saddams security forces or held government jobs. In Baghdad, some of these men hold demonstrations demanding to be paid. Central and Western Iraq is where most Sunni Arabs live, with another large concentration in the northern city of Mosul. Ever since Saddam took power, he has offered financial incentives for Sunni Arabs to move into the oil field areas, like Mosul, so that eventually Arabs would outnumber the native Kurds and Turkomen.

Most parts of Iraq are quiet, and power and water service are being restored more widely each day. In many areas, the service is better than it was before the war. This is not hard to do if you can control the corrupt officials who demanded bribes for electrical, or other services. As Iraqi government employees are put back to work, a major chore by American civil affairs troops is finding out which ones are dirty and firing them. This involves some detective work. You go talk to the Iraqi served by a civil servant and find out who is taking bribes and who takes a lot fewer. The guys who spend most of their time shaking down the people they are supposed to be serving are fired. It was common for officials in charge of electric and water supply to demand bribes from neighborhoods to insure steady supplies of power and water. The corruption extended to any service the government supplied.

In the British sector, 367 Danish soldiers have arrived for peacekeeping duty. Danish soldiers promptly found themselves in a gun fight at a road block. Since World War II, the only combat the Danish armed forces have seen has been during peacekeeping missions.

From FYEO http://www.strategypage.com/aboutus/default.asp