In the U.S. military's long history of creative wording (think collateral damage), the moniker Concerned Local Citizens stands out as a gem. The Citizens, or CLCs for short, are the former Iraqi insurgents now on the U.S. payroll in Baghdad and some of the outlying areas. The name was first used by the military in press releases last fall and was quickly picked up by the Western press. That may soon change. In recent days, the U.S. military has started referring to these fighters as the Sons of Iraq, carefully noting that they were "formerly known as Concerned Local Citizens." In western Iraq, the military still refers to similar groups as the Awakening. It's enough to make Prince's head spin.

Turns out military leaders are trying to tweak the name for a better Arabic translation. "I asked [our translators] 'Why don't you call it CLCs?' Well, CLC doesn't really translate well. It means worried people," says Brigadier General Mark McDonald who works with the groups. "If you think about what these people are doing they're not worried people. These people are out there getting after it." There has also been a deliberate effort to stay away from political and paramilitary sounding names. Most Iraqis still call the groups sahwa, or awakening, after the tribal groups that initiated the movement in Anbar province.

Whatever they're called, the fighters are now a formidable group: there are roughly 85,000 across the country. They get about three hundred dollars a month now to aim their guns away from American and Iraqi security forces. But so far the Iraqi government has only absorbed about 6,000 of them into the local security forces. Gen. McDonald estimates that roughly thirty percent of these fighters will eventually be taken into the fold. That may leave more than 50,000 armed and irked Sons of Iraq out in the cold. The current plan is to steer some toward a U.S.-funded civil service program and others may be accepted into a vocational training program funded by the Iraqi government. But one thing is almost certain, if the pace of hiring isn't stepped up, these men will go back to what they were: insurgents.