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By the end of 2007, there were 73,000 Sons of Iraq on the payroll, a source of angst for senior Shia politicians running the government, who began to fear the emergence of this Sunni army.32 The vetting process included taking fingerprints, biometric scans and photographs.33 Tragically, as would become apparent, Shia prime minister Nouri al-Maliki, always deeply suspicious and fearful of the Awakening and the Sons of Iraq, would obtain this information later and use it against recruits to destroy the Awakening movement.
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