Being at the U.S. Institute of Peace’s ginormous foreign-policy expo yesterday meant I had to bail on a morning conference call with Army Lt. Col. Jeffrey Kulmayer about the integration of the Sons of Iraq (SOI) — a 100,000-strong mostly-Sunni militia force — into the regular Iraqi security forces, civilian government or a nice retirement. Luckily David Axe from Danger Room was on the call:

Gradually, these SOI are being “peel[ed] off their security positions” and redirected into other lines of work. So far, 3,000 former SOI have joined the Iraqi national police. Around 1,600 have entered vocational training.

The latter is key. There isn’t room for all the SOI in the Iraqi police — nor are all of them suited to police jobs, since many SOI are former insurgents. The vocational training is supposed to be the consolation prize for those Sons of Iraq who won’t be allowed to continue their security careers. But Kulmayer said that “non-security employment” is “a little tougher,” in light of Iraq’s continuing economic woes and high unemployment.

If you were a neighborhood warlord, what would make you want to be a garbage man?