Violence in Baghdad, Samarra
Curfew Partially Observed
There was more violence on Friday in Iraq amid calls by clerical leaders for peace. The daytime curfew called for earlier was widely ignored, especially in East Baghdad or Sadr City, where the Mahdi Army militiamen were out in force, driving around in heavy vehicles.
*Samarra:
Borzou Daragahi of the LA Times reports,
' violence broke out in Samarra, home of the destroyed Shiite shrine. Two police officers were killed and two civilians injured in clashes and a vital oil pipeline set ablaze by saboteurs. '
*Baghdad:
Daragahi adds, 'Iraqi police today found at least 29 bodies scattered in Baghdad. Each corpse was handcuffed and had single gunshots to the head, in the style often attributed to Shiite death squads believed attached to the Ministry of Interior. '
Ed Wong of the NYT reports on the role of the militias in the recent violence in Iraq. The Shiites will certainly now insist on keeping them, after the bombing of the Askariyah shrine, but the Sunni Arabs fear them and are threatening to form their own.
Al-Zaman says that Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani called for calm on Friday, as did his Sunni Arab counterparts.
The daytime curfew called for Baghdad and some heavily Sunni Arab provinces was only partially effective. There were clashes in several districts of Baghdad, including Al-Sayyidiyah and al-Durah, but no details were forthcoming. Some clashes were said to be between Mahdi Army militiamen and Sunni Arab guerrillas.
Tariq al-Hashimi of the Iraqi Islamic Party said the security situation had improved somewhat, but expressed concern about streams of Shiite pilgrims headed from Karbala to Baghdad and then Samarra'.
Ayatollah Muhammad Ya`qubi, the spiritual leader of the Fadhilah Party, forbade his followers from marching to Samarra as they had originally planed. [The same thing is true of Muqtada al-Sadr.]
I gave an interview to Jim Lobe of Interpress Service in which I raised the possibility that there might now be a hung parliament in Iraq, with no group able to form a government, forcing new elections and further political gridlock. The Sunni Arab party, the National Accord Front, has pulled out of negotiations on the formation of a new government.
The daytime curfew in the central Sunni Arab provinces has been extended another day, through Saturday.
AP points to the way in which the Askariyah Shrine crisis points to the great authority and power of the clergy in contemporary Iraq.
NPR reported that on Wednesday and Thursday, many Iraqi policemen and soldiers either stepped aside for Shiite mobs who attacked Sunni mosques, and that some even joined in the attacks.
It just goes to show how inadequate this report for the Pentagon is. It says that 53 battalions can fight with US help, and that none can do so on their own, and that Sunni attacks have not yet produced sectarian violence. In comedy and in politics, timing is everything.
posted by Juan Cole @ 2/25/2006 06:25:00 AM
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Prof Cole: "It says that 53 battalions can fight with US help, and that none can do so on their own, and that Sunni attacks have not yet produced sectarian violence. In comedy and in politics, timing is everything"
The joke is on the American public who are buying this standing up and sitting down talk.
First: the police, not the army, fight terrorism, with intelligence gathering not bombing.
Second: the Iraqi government needs an army to protect it. The army needs heavier weapons than the potential attackers, not some stupid training marks. Right now the Americans prevent the Iraqi Forces from having armour and air power, because it wants the Iraqi Government to rely on the US for survival.
The cost to the US is simply too high for the pitiful benefits. The USA must really accept that the party is over and that they are not in control in Iraq. The Iraqis can and will buy modern armour from Russia or whoever. The snesible thing for the Americans is to leave ASAP and leave some armour behind. Enough death and misery please.
Ironically, the whole issue of raising the strength of Iraqi forces so that "they can stand up as we stand down" will be turned on its head if, as now appears to be happening, the shift is occuring from insurgency to civil war. The troops that the US has been busily training will in all likelihood not be supressing the conflict - they will be components of Shia and Kurdish forces. All the US will have accomplished is in making them better trained and better equipped to fight in a war that America cannot stop. (more...)
Ipsnews info added to Wiki. Hopefully, it won't get remeved from there.
Propaganda statements issued by the United States Government regarding the American War on Iraq have only one audience: the American electorate. Like the policy of "Vietnamization" (i.e., "Yellowing the Corpses") during the American War on Vietnam, the Orwellian euphemism "Iraqification" (i.e., "Browning the Bodies") means one thing to Americans and another thing to their foreign victims (i.e., the Yellow Corpses and Brown Bodies). The empty talk by the Bush administrattion of "standing up" Iraqis so that Americans can "stand down" only attempts to lull the American electorate into somnolent support of a bankrupt policy: promising, in effect, that the foreign victims will fight and die for American interests so that Americans won't have to fight and die for them. Like Nixon and Kissinger before them, Cheney/Rumsfeld/Bush only want to kick the can of accountability down the road until they can hand off responsibility for the disaster to someone else.
Several years ago the Bush administration called this War on Iraq "accomplished." Now they only call it "long." Another race turned into a journey. Get it?
This from TPMCafe
Standing Iraqis Up So We Can Stand Down
Staying the course in Iraq means applying Bush's "Plan For Victory" -- training Iraqi troops to take over the fighting, so we can come home. A review of the facts, provided by the Pentagon, shows we are doing very little to achieve this goal.
Today, we have zero Iraqi batallions that can fight on their own (Level 1), and the number of battalions able to "take the lead" (Level 2), while up from last October, has decreased from 60, reported earlier this month, to 53.
Let's review the timeline:
Bush-Kerry Debate, 2004:
There are 100,000 troops trained, police, guard, special units, border patrol. There's going to be 125,000 trained by the end of this year. Yes, we're getting the job done. It's hard work.
September, 2005:
The number of Iraqi army battalions that can fight insurgents without U.S. and coalition help has dropped from three to one, top U.S. generals told Congress yesterday
Early February, 2005:
Marine Corps Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said there still is just one battalion able to operate independently, and 60 capable of taking the lead in operations, with support of U.S. forces.
Today:
The only Iraqi battalion capable of fighting without U.S. support has been downgraded to a level requiring them to fight with American troops backing them up, the Pentagon said Friday.
...According to the congressionally mandated Iraq security report released Friday, there are 53 Iraqi battalions at level two status, up from 36 in October. There are 45 battalions at level three, according to the report.
How much longer are we going to allow this charade to continue?
Everytime I hear Stand Up Stand Down I think of Ring Around the Rosies
And that is all that the National Strategy for Victory is - a huge run around, another round of silly-ass slogans to buy time because the Bushevik WarParty wants us in Iraq permanently
Ring a-round a Rosie
A pocket full of posies
Ashes! Ashes!
We all fall down" .
My (cynical) impression of U.S. training for Iraqi formations has been that our goal is to make battle ready units without the command and control to plan and resupply operations -- guns without the ammo. In this style, the American military could ensure minimal U.S. casualties and stay in the background in 4 or 5 enduring bases.
I think this has been the plan, more or less, all along. In the best case scenario -- which is now absurd -- we'd remain in those bases resupplying, training, equipping and occasionally enhancing Iraqi manned operations.
But, now the situation has rapidly deteriated. The greatest threat has always been sectarian militias and a sectarian government lacking important legitimacy in the opinion of one or several demographics. Unfortunately, quasi-trained troops could be a significant liability if this sectarian nightmare comes into being -- and it appears to be approaching a certainty.
Dr. Cole,
I see that you are quickly becoming the go-to guy for opinions on affairs in Iraq. Hard to believe how things change. It would be interesting to see if they will also be asking for your opinions on Israel/Palestine issues.
Dr. Cole,
Can you comment on 'training'? What does training Iraqi batallions and police imply? If it involves showing them how to properly hold a gun and how to march, I'm not sure this is a good thing. I believe the focus needs to be on encouraging the Iraqis to want to stand up instead of instructing them on how. I guess, however, Iraq is just like the United States; increase spending on the military, decrease it on education, health care, infrastructure, and enegy. Let's train away and maybe the Iraqi army will get a ribbon in the parade.
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