Battle for Baghdad
US troops clashed with the Mahdi Army of clerical nationalist Muqtada al-Sadr in Sadr City Monday morning.
A car bombing of a large hall being used for a mourning gathering killed at least 15 and wounded at least 30 in Tikrit, a Sunni Arab city north of Baghdad. Saddam Hussein and his clan hail from this city.
In the capital, the US military and Iraqi soldiers of the elected government launched a big security operation. Some 3500 US troops had been brought down from Mosul (where security promptly collapsed, according to al-Zaman).
It turns out that the Sunni Arab guerrilla strategy had been gradually to ethnically cleanse southern districts of the capital [Ar.], so as to cut it off from the Shiite south. One observer in Baghdad told a friend of mine that this operation is make or break. If the US cannot stop the deterioration of security in Baghdad at this point, then the capital is lost, and with it the country.
Ironically, after intensively covering Iraq for over three years, the US mass media are largely missing this story, the pivotal one for the endgame.
Despite the big military operation, guerrillas ambushed an Iraqi checkpoint on Sunday, killing 5 Iraqi policemen. And there were two bombings (details not known). And 20 bodies were found in the streets, victims of faith-based hatred. Four bodies were found in the Tigris near Suwayra.
Some 10,000 ex-Baathists who had been fired from government jobs after the war have now been reinstated.
posted by Juan Cole @ 8/07/2006 12:09:00 AM
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5 Comments:
Right now there is only one person who could pull the US's fat out of the fire (and unfortunately maybe Dubya's fat with it). With a little US support this person could settle the whole problem down in about 3 weeks. Yes you heard it here first folks.
"SADDAM, NOW MORE THAN EVER!"
Ever So Pragmatically,
Mike Adams
Atlanta
I don't understand the Sadr City dynamics. Had Iraqi police lost control, or never held the zone at all? Or do Mahdi militia infitrate and become synonymous with what functions as the security force there? Do Muqtada men kidnap or kill Sunnis? Does Muqtada acknowledge any of this? Does the US have him targetted like Zarqawi? Were he to disappear, would the forces disperse or report to a successor? Mihgt a multinational effort to pacify South Lebanon resemble the US dilemma in Baghdad?
Gen Batiste, retired commander 1st Infantry Division Iraq on Hardball [paraphrase]
"I don't know whether it is a civil war or not but I can't see that it matters. Iraq is racked with uncontrollable violence; our forces have lost the initiative, and there is nothing we can do about it"
Some 10,000 ex-Baathists who had been fired from government jobs after the war have now been reinstated.
Oooh, I hope the irony will not be lost on readers!
Once James Gardiner was swiftly evacuated for having promoted democratic elections by way of putting Iraq back on its feet, Paul Bremer was sent in to make the country safe for business, first. That meant dismantling nationalised industries and the elimination of Ba'athist bureaucracy. Exunt the very people who were in a position to maintain social order and cohesion!
Spectacular blunder. One of many.
What we're witnessing in Iraq has parallels in the US's handling of Afghanistan, which has been equally as disastrous. Afghanistan, unfortunately, doesn't make headlines any longer, but the country is "close" to a state of anarchy, according to Lieutenant General David Richards, head of Nato's international security force.
Oversight of the Afghanistan disaster has recently been handed over to Nato forces. -- The US destroys the country, bungles the reestablishment of civil order and then calls on Nato to take on the consequences of its utter ineptitude. Good grief, we're talking about utterly shattered governments and populations, here. Iraq, Afghanistan ... and now Lebanon.
Just how long does the US/Israeli/UK coalition think that its purported allies will be willing to condone their loose-cannon policies with the resultant, additional task of cleaning up after them?
It's high time that these tactics be declared folly.
I think Aug 7, 2006 will be remembered as the day the US military walked off the plank in Iraq. Our attacks on the Mahdi Army was our choosing of sides in a civil war. The wingnuts continue to amaze. They want use our experience in Lebanon to demonize Hizbollah while forgetting the only reason we were targeted was because we got duped into choosing sides in THAT civil war.
Of course Rumsfeld's definition of a civil war goes back to the Blues and the Grays. I truly believe yessterday's attacks on the Sadr militia will prove to be the biggest strategic or tactical error we've made to date since the invasion.
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