From a U.S. briefing to reporters yesterday, some numbers emerged on the mostly Sunni militia forces, concerned citizens groups, neighborhood watch groups, and so on, including the Awakening Council.

There are a total of 77,542 members of the forces. Of those, 60,000 are paid fighters, who have been fingerprinted by the United States and their DNA samples recorded.

There are 192 separate forces. "This is a not a militia. It's more than 190 distinct groups of individuals," said R. Adm. Greg Smith. Ten new groups have been added in the past week.

The United States plans to add 10,000 more to the force soon, and has capped the total at 100,000. Each is paid $300 per month. If it reaches 100,000, that means $30 million per month. The U.S. spends something like $12 billion a month in Iraq, so it's a drop in the bucket.

Here's a quote from Sami al-Askari, a Shia politician close to PM Maliki: "When the United States leaves, what we'll have are two armies, one who's loyal to the government and one not loyal."

According to AP, 46,000 of the paid forces are Sunni. The rest, 14,000, are Shia.

There's a story from Howaijiya in northern Iraq, from the Chicago Trib, about the biggest such mobilization yet:

Nearly 6,000 tribal Sunni Arabs from the city of Howaiyja joined a security pact with American forces on Wednesday in what U.S. officers described as a critical step in plugging the remaining escape routes for gunmen flushed from former strongholds, reported the Chicago Tribune newspaper.

"The new alliance - called the single largest volunteer mobilization since the war began - covers the "last gateway" for groups such as al-Qaeda in Iraq seeking new havens in northern Iraq, U.S. military officials said," the paper said. ...

""The ceremony to pledge the 6,000 new fighters was presided over by a dozen sheiks -- each draped in black robes trimmed with gold braiding -- who signed the contract on behalf of tribesmen at a small U.S. outpost in north-central Iraq," the U.S. newspaper highlighted.

"For about $275 a month -- nearly the salary for the typical Iraqi policeman -- the tribesmen will man about 200 security checkpoints beginning Dec. 7, supplementing hundreds of Iraqi forces already in the area."