US Tribal Militias?

A strange comment from Informed Comment today:

Al-Hayat reports that the Americans have given up attempting to dialogue with the Sunni Arab Resistance, preferring instead to deal with the tribes. This attempt has not gone well. The Americans paid $20 million to set up something called "tribal militias," money that appears to have simply been embezzled.

Iraqi Accord Front member Shaikh Khalaf al-`Ulyan called on the US government to direct its efforts toward the Iraqi resistance groups, saying that it had been a huge error to focuse in Ramadi on tribal chieftains who in fact have no influence, and some of whom had not even been in Anbar province for years. Shaikh Farhan al-Sadid also emphasized that the Americans would get nowhere with security in Anbar until they talked directly to the armed resistance.

Sounds more than a little odd to me...