That's the headline from an article in The Observer yesterday.  It describes an honor killing in Basra, where a 17-year-old girl was stomped to death by her father for talking to a British soldier -- "the enemy, the invader and a Christian".

Well, it's been a long time since I posted and received the wrath of dKos for pointing out the obvious for stating this, but I'll do so again: this is another example of how religion kills.  

A father barbarically kills his own daughter, with the help of his two sons, her brothers... while the mother looked on, unable to stop it.  The girl's crime was she fell in love with a British soldier in Basra.

The father was arrested, and then released two hours later...

because it was an "honour killing". And, unfortunately, that is something to be proud of for any Iraqi man.'

Conn Hallinan who is a Foreign Policy In Focus  columnist has a writeup over at Foreign Policy in Focus, go figure.

It's titled Basra: Echoes of Vietnam, and while some is about the recent cheney debacle in Basra, and yep he had to have requested the Iraqi action in his resent visit, looks too much like what he's done these past 7plus years, in short it shows the ignorance and failed policy decisions, once again, that this Nation has been subject to as we destroy others.

Al Qaeda
Iraq
Al Qaeda in Iraq
Iran
Al Qaeda in Iraq

Please forgive me if this has been linked already - I was out-of-town for a couple of days, and just saw this article this morning.

Iraqi Troops Dismissed After Basra Attack

More below the fold.

When not in court, I usually keep one of the two cable news stations on in the background of the office, just to keep the little finger on the pulse of this place.

Today, General B Petraeus managed to tie up cable news with a marathon performance so substance free, so spin-fully delectable, so adverse fact free that several beverage companies were seen lurking about, trying to capture his ability to remove the slightest hint of caloric impact on the recipient.

Sure, there were some good times, Senators Dodd, Biden, Obama, and even a republican or two. But for the most part, all we learned (with all news to the contrary being diced, sliced, saute'd and broiled into nothingness) was that THE SURGE IS A SUCCESS.

Yep, you can stop reading here. Just to repeat the Big Message, THE SURGE IS A SUCKCESS.

In their testimony before Congress today, General David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker began painting a picture of American progress in Iraq.  But even as the United States faces a diminishing threat from Al Qaeda thanks in part to former Sunni insurgents the U.S. has largely co-opted, American forces find themselves increasingly engaged in an intra-sectarian Shiite conflict in which Iran is seemingly backing all sides.  And with General Petraeus calling for an indefinite pause in the drawdown of U.S. troops after July, President Bush's so-called "return on success" has apparently once again been postponed.

Here, then, are five questions for Petraeus and Crocker:

To read today's news I fear it may be.

Via Reuters and Yahoo News

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq's prime minister raised the stakes in his showdown with followers of Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, saying in an interview broadcast on Monday they would be barred from elections unless their militia disbands.

The comments followed an offensive by government forces into the cleric's Baghdad stronghold, the Shi'ite slum of Sadr City, in which heavy fighting returned to the capital after a week of relative calm when Sadr called his militiamen off the streets.

"A decision was taken ... that they no longer have a right to participate in the political process or take part in the upcoming elections unless they end the Mehdi Army," Maliki said in an interview with CNN, according to a report posted on the U.S. television network's Web site.

Maliki's threat to drive Sadr's millions of supporters out of the political process heightens tensions in a conflict that has divided Iraq's Shi'ite majority and led to the worst fighting since extra U.S. troops arrived last year.

Last Sunday, when Moqtada al-Sadr announced a ceasefire that he'd reached with the Iraqi government, it seemed pretty obvious from its terms and from the context of the fighting in Basra and elsewhere that Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki had been humiliated in this confrontation. At first however the traditional news media adopted the spin coming from the Iraqi and American governments that the truce amounted to a victory of sorts for Maliki in his "decisive and final battle" against Sadr's militia.

Slowly the American media came to realize that the victory might be a tad "ambiguous". Then came detailed reports of the stunning desertion rate among Iraqi forces sent to Basra, perhaps as high as 30 percent.  Any remaining ambiguity has now evaporated in the Mesopotamian sun:

Iraq's prime minister on Friday ordered a nationwide freeze on raids against suspected Shiite militants after the leader of the biggest militia complained that arrests were continuing even after he ordered fighters off the streets.

The announcement was a major shift from comments Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki made a day earlier, and came after Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr — whose Mahdi Army militia fought government troops in the southern city of Basra and in Baghdad last week — hinted at retaliation if arrests of his followers did not stop.

These arrests had provoked the unrest before Maliki's attempt to clamp down in Basra. Sadr had demanded an end to them in his ceasefire proposal. With an empty show of bravado, Maliki later hinted that the arrests would continue unabated. Now he has crumbled completely.

Al-Maliki's move appeared to be a goodwill gesture toward al-Sadr and his followers. But it was also a dramatic turnabout: He said Thursday that he intended to launch security operations against Mahdi Army strongholds in Baghdad, including Sadr City, home to some 2.5 million Shiites and the militia's largest base.

Al-Maliki said last week that gunmen in Basra had until April 8 to surrender their heavy weapons, but Friday's statement made no mention of that deadline.

This is the leader whom George Bush backed as the man to unify and stabilize Iraq. It's a sad commentary on Bush's acumen, of course. Less noticed perhaps is that Maliki is also the guy who will play a big role in John McCain's campaign. McCain has premised his entire foreign policy on the argument that the US cannot ever allow a "power vacuum" to emerge in Iraq. Maliki is a walking, talking power vacuum.

Thus it's telling that the Iraqi Prime Minister's name has all but disappeared from McCain's campaign website during 2008.  In 2006 McCain was occasionally willing to criticize Maliki's record in public, but once the McCain "surge" began it became expedient to stick to praising the Iraqi Prime Minister for every modest sign of "progress". There were frequent references to Maliki in 2007 at McCain's website. As the presidential campaign heats up, then, it will be interesting to see the extent to which McCain tries to distance himself from an Iraqi leader upon whose incompetence so much depends.

Though the latest NIE on Iraq was delivered to Congress on April Fools' Day, you'll probably never get to see any part of it. The Bush administration decided that the public has no need to know what intelligence agencies think about the state of a country the US invaded and occupied five years ago.

That's hardly unexpected. A few weeks back when the Pentagon delivered it's latest quarterly happy talk, "Measuring stability and security in Iraq" (PDF), it did so with minimum fanfare. Quarterly reports have to be published by law, NIEs do not. And just to make sure that everybody understands that there's no real need to publish this Iraqi NIE, the administration let it be known that it isn't really an NIE at all.

According to an administration official with knowledge of the intelligence process, this morning's intelligence document isn't itself a National Intelligence Estimate. "It's not a formal report," the official said, "it's more or less an assessment memo, an update to policy makers."

It's no surprise that the White House thinks public debate is best served by a misinformed citizenry. What's a little more remarkable, though, is that the WH has now sent out officials to describe the Iraqi NIE's contents to reporters - an NIE it insists on keeping secret. The NYT provides us with an official version of those contents. Treat it all with due skepticism.

A new National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq cites significant security improvements and progress toward healing sectarian political rifts, but concludes that security remains fragile and terrorist groups remain capable of initiating large attacks, several American government officials said this week.

The classified document provides a more upbeat analysis of conditions in Iraq than the last major assessment by United States spy agencies, last summer. It was completed this week, just days before the top American commander in Iraq, Gen. David H. Petraeus, is due in Washington to give lawmakers a progress report on the military strategy in Iraq.

While the last assessment painted a grim picture of an Iraqi government paralyzed by sectarian strife, the new intelligence estimate cites slow but steady progress by Iraqi politicians on forging alliances between Shiites and Sunnis in Iraq, said the government officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the document is classified.

Actually, the previous NIE from August 2007 was remarkably upbeat as well, citing slow but steady progress:

"There have been measurable but uneven improvements in Iraq's security situation since our last NIE on Iraq in January 2007."

If the anonymous government officials' assessment of the latest NIE is accurate, and that's a big if, then like the last estimate it accentuates the positive. In any case, it probably reveals little about Iraq that the public doesn't already know from news reports (again, much like the August 2007 NIE).

Several lawmakers familiar with its conclusions declined to provide specifics but said it contained little information beyond public accounts of recent events in Iraq. "The stuff that was positive, they emphasized. The negative, they stated, but deemphasized," said Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.)...

"I was discouraged" by the assessment, Biden said. "I was discouraged by the last one, too."

This is what the WH wants the public to believe about an NIE it can't read:

"The N.I.E. update confirmed that the surge strategy the president announced in January of last year is working," said one senior administration official. "There’s more work to be done, but progress has obviously been made."

That ever elusive "progress in Iraq" the WH has been talking about since June 2003. We know it was making stuff up about progress in 2003, again in 2004, also in 2005, and in 2006, as well as in 2007. But how credible is the Bush administration in 2008?

By a remarkable coincidence, just yesterday the NYT published an account of Nouri al-Maliki's "planning" for last week's disastrous assault on Basra, an account based on named and unnamed American officials. The point of the exercise was to convey the idea that the Bush administration had virtually no idea what Maliki was going to do until two days in advance - and then only because Maliki invited General David Petraeus to a parlay on March 22 and told him his plans.

In short, by the administration's own account it can't be held accountable for last week's failure because it was caught almost completely unawares regarding the biggest Iraqi military operation since 2003. One way or another, the Bush administration's record of perspicacity in regards to Iraq is abysmal.

That's approximately how much we can trust the latest, secret NIE on Iraq.

Toward the end of the most violent month in Iraq since last August (nearly one thousand dead Iraqis), Michael Ledeen threw down the jam with these shrewd observations:

If the Iraqi Government wins this, there will be consequences all around. First, it will curl the toes of the mullahs, because of all the possible outcomes in Iraq, the worst for them is a duly elected government that can fight effectively. Second, as Nibras says, it will greatly solidify Maliki’s position in Baghdad. Third, it will send a double message throughout the region: it isn’t easy to defeat America, and countries that work with America can defeat even the fiercest enemy.

--Michael Ledeen, March 27, 2008

I did not make this up:

John,

My mom was a delegate in Dallas this past weekend. She arrived at 7AM and didn't get to leave until 8PM. She said that it appeared the Clinton delegates were trying to drag things out so long that people would have to leave. She thought they challenged about 3,000 delegates and each of them had to go through the credentialing committee.

One of the Clinton delegates from her group challenged the validity of entire precincts. One of the precincts she challenged was almost entirely African American. Towards the end, after this group was credentialed they came by and shook their fists at the Clinton delegate and chanted "we're still here" in her face. My mom said it was a little tense.

Leith Kubba, former government spokesman for Iraq, and Yahia Said, of the London School of Economics, are discussing Maliki's actions in Basra with Gwen Ifil on Jim Lehrer's News Hour.

Kubba believes Maliki's military "surge" against Basra was a mistake; Said believes Maliki's Kagan-Keane style military action was not only useful but also victorious in 'showing the Sadr army who's in charge.'

The people of Basra did not have any representatives available for Ifil to interview.

Many of the citizens of Basra were eliminated over a decade-long period of sanctions -- much like the sanctions the US has been imposing on Iran over the last five or six years.

Here's what Basra experienced, and what Americans should be prepared to see happening in Iran, courtesy of the US administration that Americans support with their tax dollars.

when we first went into Iraq 5 years ago, some of my lowest level students were absolutely certain that the only reason we were doing do was because of oil, despite anything to the contrary said by the administration or anyone else, including other possibilities raised by their teacher.  I thought back to those conversations this morning when I read the following:

What, exactly, did the United States use its military might to accomplish last week? We intervened in a struggle among various Shiite power centers for control of a city where much of Iraq's oil industry -- and thus much of its potential wealth -- is based. We supported a political figure who was trying to weaken another political figure in advance of upcoming elections. We boosted the morale and fervor of the most implacable opponents of continued American occupation.

Does any of this have anything to do with our nation's vital interests? I suppose you could argue that Basra is important because of the oil, but the city is no more under Baghdad's control today than it was two weeks ago.

 The words, by Eugene Robinson, appear in this morning's Washington Post and are where I  begin.

On Sunday, Senator Lindsay Graham (R-SC) showed once again that President Bush, John McCain and their conservative amen corner can't tell the players in Iraq even with a scorecard.  Even as Graham proclaimed of the fighting in Basra, "the militias that we are fighting are backed by Iran," President Bush and Vice President Bush continue to embrace the largest Iranian-backed political force in Iraq, the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council led by Abdul Aziz al-Hakim.

The Tuzla pilot who flew Hillary Clinton into Tuzla speaks out:

Obama gains nine delegates in Texas Caucuses:

With more than 56 percent of the results tallied from today’s 284 Democratic district conventions across Texas, Sen. Barack Obama currently is projected to earn a 38-29 pledged delegate win in the Texas caucuses, exactly as projected on the day after the March 4th precinct caucuses. The nine delegate margin in the caucuses means Obama will gain a net margin of five pledged delegates from Texas because Senator Clinton narrowly won the Texas primary by only four delegates, 65-61.

In a slick move, Shiite cleric M. al Sadr ordered his forces off the streets in the Southern provinces of Iraq.  Though the Jaysh e Madhi is splintered, and there may be factions that do not obey the powerful cleric, al Jazeera is reporting that he has nonetheless ordered his troops to stand down.

Now this might seem a victory for al maliki, but I think you will agree that Maliki has been undercut here.  Who did the people listen to?  Maliki?  Hell no, they listened to Sadr.  Who has the people?  Sadr.  

We have been "faced," and this clever move by Sadr leaves us more isolated and alien than ever.  Let's jump.

On Sunday Nouri al-Maliki admitted defeat in his attempt to crack down on Moqtada al Sadr's Mahdi Army in Basra. Maliki had begun the week demanding that Mahdi forces surrender within 72 hours, calling this "a decisive and final battle." Yet as the disastrous campaign backfired in Basra, Baghdad and elsewhere Maliki pathetically extended the rejected deadline until April 8th. As Patrick Cockburn noted, "Maliki's confident prediction that he would crush the Mehdi Army is turning out to be a dangerous gamble that is fast eroding his authority."

Today Maliki appears to have accepted a humiliating 'compromise' offered by Sadr (h/t Cernig).  The Iraqi government will leave the Mahdi militia alone, which in turn will cease patrolling the streets under arms. It's a return to the status quo ante, except that Sadr has demonstrated his power conclusively - and Maliki his weakness.

The hapless Prime Minister is trying to portray this as a climb-down by Sadr, naturally.

A spokesman for Mr Maliki, Ali al-Dabbagh, told Iraq television the statement was positive.

"As the government of Iraq we welcome this statement. We believe this will support the government of Iraq's efforts to impose security."

His government also is talking tough:

Ali al-Dabbagh...warned in a telephone interview broadcast on Iraqi state TV that security forces would continue to target those who don't follow the order.

"We expect a wide response to this call," he said. "After this announcement, anybody who targets the government and its institutions will be regarded ... as outlaws."

So far western news media have refrained from pointing out how thoroughly Maliki has been humiliated. But the idea that Sadr has given way under pressure is scarcely credible after the Mahdi Army's string of successes this week. The near disintegration of the Iraqi army sent to Basra has been the best possible endorsement of Sadr's political stature, whereas each day brings further disasters for the Iraqi government.

Dozens of Shiite gunmen stormed a state TV facility in central Basra before al-Sadr's declaration Sunday, forcing Iraqi troops guarding the building to flee and setting armored vehicles on fire.

One of al-Maliki's top security officials was killed in a mortar attack against the palace that houses the military operations center, officials said.

The terms offered by Sadr indicate that he is playing the stronger hand. He is offering Maliki a face-saving retreat while staking out the moral high ground.

Moqtada Sadr's statement said: "Because of the religious responsibility, and to stop Iraqi blood being shed, and to maintain the unity of Iraq and to put an end to this sedition that the occupiers and their followers want to spread among the Iraqi people, we call for an end to armed appearances in Basra and all other provinces.

"Anyone carrying a weapon and targeting government institutions will not be one of us."

The cleric also demanded that the government apply the general amnesty law, release detainees and stop what he called illegal raids.

The latter are the same demands Sadr was making before Tuesday's attack in Basra, so in effect he's standing his ground while offering an armistice and a cooling off of tensions. The Mahdi Army will not give up their weapons, as Maliki had demanded.

Furthermore, Sadr's offer included other terms as well, which the western media have not reported. Arab sources indicate that Sadr's nine-point proposal demands the withdrawal of Iraqi and US forces from Basra and, even more embarrassingly, the retreat of Maliki and his Defense and Interior ministers from Basra back to Baghdad within 48 hours. With the acceptance of his 'compromise', Sadr solidifies his power base in Basra.

This Iraqi press release shows the extent to which Maliki has lost face:

Spokesman for the Iraqi government Ali Al-Dabbag, in a press release, said the government welcomed this call which would serve to avoid bloodshed, adding that this reflected Al-Sadr's keenness for maintaining the safety of civilians.

Maliki may have difficulty in holding onto power now. He's shown the incompetence not only of the best military forces under his direct control, but also of the Prime Minister personally. For at least five millenia it's been a truism in Mesopotamia that leaders, if they want to endure, must always avoid implicating themselves in military defeat. By taking charge of operations in Basra, Maliki showed how woefully out of touch he is with Iraqi political wisdom. Of course, at this stage it should surprise nobody that Maliki is incapable of governing. That was almost fated from the moment his name was floated as a compromise candidate in 2006. For Maliki, a former exile under Saddam Hussein, had no political base in Iraq. The Bush administration's misjudgment in backing yet another returned exile as leader in that badly fractured country has had the predictable consequence that the Iraqi government cannot function. It's fair to say at this date that there is no government in Iraq, just the mirage of one.

Update: Fighting continues in Baghdad and Basra, and the truce may not be taking hold in fact. The NYT reports that "the substance of the nine-point statement, released by Mr. Sadr on Sunday afternoon, was hammered out in elaborate negotiations over the past few days with senior Iraqi officials, some of whom traveled to Iran to meet with Mr. Sadr". Sadr's spokesman earlier today told reporters that the Maliki government had accepted the deal in full.

"We confirm that there were guarantees taken from the Iraqi government to fulfill all the points in this statement. Thus, no more random arrests,"

But after Sadr announced the truce, a Maliki spokesman told Reuters that "the operation in Basra will continue and will not stop until it achieves its goals." Now Reuters is reporting also that Mahdi fighters doubt the Iraqi government will honor the terms of the truce. The LA Times, NYT, and Time all report that fighting is continuing, including further US air strikes in Basra. The truce may break down completely, then, before it could even take hold.