Attacking Sadr Means 20 More Years In Iraq
Sun Apr 20, 2008 at 05:04:28 AM PDT
So Maliki decided to cleanup Basra right ? Our personal Puppet in Iraq made such a big decider move all by himself ? Both Bush and Maliki know the only reason the so-called surge even appeared to look like it worked is because of the cease-fire with Sadr. Now they have pushed him to the limit and if he breaks, all hell will break loose again. Just as good as going in to Iran ?
Probably not good enough for the Neocons, but it will enable them to stay close and bide their time.
BAGHDAD — Iraqi soldiers took control of the last bastions of the cleric Moktada al-Sadr’s militia in Basra on Saturday, and Iran’s ambassador to Baghdad strongly endorsed the Iraqi government’s monthlong military operation against the fighters...
Despite the apparent concession of Basra, Mr. Sadr issued defiant words on Saturday night. In a long statement read from the loudspeakers of his Sadr City Mosque, he threatened to declare "war until liberation" against the government if fighting against his militia forces continued.
Maliki attacks Basra, over a 1000 Iraqis refuse to fight and go home instead. Finally the Americans secure the city, but to what end ? First confusion starts in the first paragraph where it says the Iranian Ambassador was supportive of the fight in Basra against Sadr. Sadr has been living in Iran off and on since this all started, and the claims have been that the Iranians have been supplying him with money, guns and IEDs.
The Maliki government has at least a semireasonable explanation for Basra, but explain the next couple paragraphs to me please. There are some questions that need answered and yet we can't even turn to some of our so-called experts for fear of lies and spin.
"The idea of the government in Basra was to fight outlaws," Mr. Qumi said. "This was the right of the government and the responsibility of the government. And in my opinion the government was able to achieve a positive result in Basra."
Strikingly, however, Ambassador Qumi simultaneously condemned American-led operations against the Mahdi Army in the Shiite enclave of Sadr City, where major new clashes broke out on Saturday. He said the American-backed fighting in that densely populated district was causing only civilian casualties rather than achieving any positive result.
"The American insistence on coming and having a siege on a couple of million people in one area and striking them with warplanes and shelling them randomly — many innocent people will be killed through this operation," Mr. Qumi said. "The result of this operation will be the sabotage and destruction of buildings, and many people will leave their homes."
Remember that Civil War we used to worry about happening ? By invading Sadr City we are guaranteeing it will happen, thereby forcing the next Pres. to stay in Iraq or face ridicule from the Hawks and Neocons. Cheney is still never safe to underestimate it seems. Even one of Cheneys old friends, now in Iraq, Judith Miller is reporting on the strifle in Badr City.
Over tea, Raheem Darraji, Sadr City's mayor, told me that the more than 3 million Shiites in the two districts had been suffering from food and medicine shortages since the government imposed a virtual siege on their neighborhoods in early April. People couldn't get to their jobs or buy food; no vehicles could enter or leave the enclaves, not even ambulances; the only way in or out was on foot. A statement by Iraq's parliamentary committee on human rights called the humanitarian crisis "acute."
By the time the government lifted the vehicular ban in Shula about a week ago and followed suit in Sadr City for a few hours shortly afterward, the prices of food, medicine and other necessities had soared. Bread had tripled in price. Many people remained reluctant to leave their homes, fearful of being caught in a crossfire between roving gangs of young Sadr militiamen and the American-backed Iraqi army. On April 11, Iraqi police said American airstrikes had killed 13 people in Sadr City and that street fighting had claimed nearly 90 lives. Sadr City doctors call this a gross underestimate and claim that the Iraqi army or American support fire killed at least 230 people.
Thus, the United States found itself in the unenviable position of supporting an Iraqi government that was firing on the same long-suffering Shiites whom the invasion five years ago was intended to free. American officials say they had little choice but to back Maliki in his potentially catastrophic campaign: Without American support -- including logistics, artillery fire and airstrikes from Apache helicopters armed with Hellfire missiles -- the Iraqi army most likely would have collapsed in Basra and stalled in Baghdad's Shiite neighborhoods as well.
But several American officers and veteran students of Iraq made clear that they resented having been dragged into, at best, an ill-conceived, poorly planned confrontation and, at worst, an intra-sectarian, strictly Shiite power struggle that threatens to undermine the ostensible progress achieved by President Bush's troop surge.
http://www.latimes.com/...
Rueters is reporting this from Iraq today which should put a exclamation mark on the near future.
"If they don't come to their senses and curb the infiltrated militias, then we will declare an open war until liberation."
Sadr's movement accuses other Shi'ite parties of getting their militias into the Iraqi security forces, especially in southern Shi'ite Iraq where various factions are competing for influence in a region home to most of Iraq's oil output.
Sadr launched two uprisings against U.S. forces in 2004.
His movement then entered politics and backed Maliki's rise to power in 2006. But the youthful Sadr split with Maliki, a fellow Shi'ite, a year ago when the prime minister refused to set a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq.
"Do you want a third uprising?" Sadr said, adding that he wanted Iraq's Shi'ite clerical establishment to set a date for the departure of American troops.
In Sadr's Baghdad stronghold of Sadr City, one Mehdi Army commander said he was "thrilled" about the statement.
"We will wait until tomorrow to see the response of the government. Otherwise they will see black days like they have never seen before in their life."
Sadr's threat could not come at a worse time. On Friday, U.S. forces said they had intelligence suggesting Sunni Islamist al Qaeda, pushed out of Baghdad and western Iraq last year, was plotting a return to the capital to stage major bomb attacks.
http://www.rawstory.com/...
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