From AP: Exactly WHO is the Enemy?

by mldostert

May 06, 2007

Under the heading of things that make your head explode comes this story from the AP, posted 21 minutes ago.

US leaves militia limited security role

The story says that the US is deliberately leaving the Mahdi army in charge of some parts of Bahgdad. Yes, the same Madhdi army that is supposedly contolled by Iran, that we are supposed to be fighting. And Why?

Even so, Miska said, "right now we just don't have a better alternative."

You have to read this story - it's unbelievable:

Some of the choice bits:

"There are a lot of people affiliated with JAM, and if we made them all enemies, we'd be in trouble," said Lt. Col. Steve Miska, 39, of Greenport, N.Y., who commands U.S. troops in northwest Baghdad.

"So we try to sort out who's extremist JAM and can't be reasoned with because of their ideology, and who we can live with as long as they're not killing U.S. and Iraqi soldiers or civilians."

Miska's efforts suffered a setback last week when Iraq's parliament passed legislation banning U.S. troops from within two-thirds of a mile of the shrine.

The measure, proposed by al-Sadr's representatives in parliament, was seen as largely symbolic and was approved the day after a gunbattle between U.S. troops and Mahdi fighters. During the two-hour fight, some Iraqi soldiers fought alongside Mahdi Army gunmen, according to the Iraqi officer in charge of security in the area.

He spoke on condition of anonymity out of fear for his life. But his account was corroborated by U.S. officials, who said some Iraqi soldiers took off their uniforms and tossed weapons to militiamen.

That cuts to the heart of a dilemma for the U.S. military three months into the campaign to pacify Baghdad: whether to risk fierce battles by confronting Shiite militiamen blamed for massacring Sunnis or to deal with "moderates" in the Mahdi Army — which the U.S. believes receives weapons and training from Iran.

(snip)

Without the militia, U.S. and Iraqi officers acknowledge that the 2,000 Iraqi security forces and 500 American soldiers based in the area would be hard-pressed to protect the neighborhood's 120,000 residents and the shrine, which houses the tombs of two 8th century Shiite imams.

In fact, the article makes clear, all of the Iraqi army units that have appeared in Baghdad for the surge are, in fact, Mahdi army units.

But in Kazimiyah, the number of fighters has spiked in recent months, U.S. and Iraqi officials said.

With the approval of the Sunni-run Defense Ministry, the reinforcements include more than 300 men dispatched by Bahaa al-Araji, a member of al-Sadr's bloc in parliament. The Iraqi government is still in the process of issuing them weapons, but the entire force is believed to have come from the Mahdi Army.

"You're looking at JAM with political cover all the way to the top here," Miska said.

In addition, militiamen are believed to have infiltrated most Iraqi army, National Police and local police units in Kazimiyah, U.S. and Iraqi officials said.

So, let me get this straight. We had to have a "surge" to tamp down the violence and allow for political reconciliation, so that Sunnis would lay down their arms and join the political process.

But the US is partnering with the very Mahdi Army that is murdering Sunnis, forcing them from their homes, etc. Add this to recent news that a secretive office in Al Maliki's goverment is purging army officers who confront the Mahdi army.
Shadowy Iraq office accused of sectarian agenda

and the US strategy becomes clear: we've picked a side - the Iranian-backed side - in the Iraqi civil war.

And the Sunnis have evidently figured it out - as they are serious about bolting the government.

Sunni demand could unravel Iraqi government

Now, if I was Sunni - would I quite fighting?

what are we DOING?!?

Tags: Mahdi army, Iraq, shiite militias (all tags)

Permalink | 41 comments

U.S. tolerates Shiite militias

The Times reports point blank today what ought to have been obvious since the start of the so-called "surge," namely, that the United States has decided to concentrate its fire on the Sunnis and give the Shiite death squads and paramilitary forces -- read: SCIRI -- a free pass. Notes the Times:

In Baghdad, American officials seem increasingly willing to tolerate some of those Shiite militias as long as they patrol their own neighborhoods. Administration officials said they had eased up on parts of the timetable for re-integrating former Baathists, for fear of a Shiite backlash.

An accompanying Times piece makes this even more explicit, citing Maj. Gen. William B. Caldwell IV, the top spokesman for the United States military :

General Caldwell’s comments — combined with praise for the cooperation of Shiite officials and negotiators for the Mahdi Army, the Shiite militia loyal to the cleric Moktada al-Sadr — seemed to suggest that the military was returning to its former strategy of concentrating on Sunni extremists. That would represent a change from American officials’ comments in the past few months that identified Shiite militias as Iraq’s largest threat.

Thanks to Juan Cole's Informed Comment blog, we have an interview with Khalaf al-Ulayyan, a Sunni member of parliament, who accuses the United States of launching an all-out assault against the Sunnis while bringing Shiite militamen into the Iraqi forces involved in the "surge." In Amman, speaking to Iraq's Al-Zawra TV, here's part of what Ulayyan says:

Al-Ulayyan accuses the Government of trying to gain time by impeding the security plan. "They want to gain time to evict and kill the largest possible number of Sunnis, especially in the Baghdad Governorate," he claims, adding: "They dissolved Al-Mahdi Army before the implementation of the plan and asked the Al-Mahdi Army not to take up arms against US forces." He says the government has absorbed them into the National Guard, the Interior Ministry storm troopers, or law enforcement personnel.

He says that "top Al-Mahdi Army commanders" were smuggled outside Iraq to keep them from being arrested or killed, and notes that there was "an order to that effect signed by the prime minister himself and was displayed on space channels and on the Internet." He argues that the US forces go to the Al-Sadr city but they do not encounter any resistance. He says they announce on television that "the US and government forces will be storming the Al-Sadr City to search for concealed arms," noting that this is a warning to them to be on their guard. He says once they hear such warning, they will conceal their arms or bury them and the wanted people will escape. Al-Ulayyan asks: "Why do they not do that in our areas? Why do they not say that they will storm Al-A'zamiah neighborhood? Why do they not say that they plan to storm Al-Khadra or Al-Ghazaliyah neighborhoods?"

Not surprisingly, though you don't often hear this from a member of the Iraqi parliament, Ulayyan explicitly supports the resistance in Iraq, though he condemns Al Qaeda.

Al-Ulayyan says the Iraqi resistance is an honor to every Iraqi. He says that "when the Iraqi state collapsed in such a short time, we were ashamed and I could not appear in public because I was ashamed." He says the Iraqi resistance restored the honor of the Iraqis. He says he is prepared to offer everything to the resistance, adding: "The Iraqi resistance that fights the occupation, that defends the Iraqis, and that does not shed the blood of the Iraqis is the real resistance. We do not recognize terrorism that kills the Iraqis -- Shiites, Sunnis, or others -- and we do not consider it Iraqi resistance.

Posted by Robert Dreyfuss on March 15, 2007 10:31 AM | Permalink

Iraqi insurgents offer peace in return for US concessions

Robert Fisk

For the first time, Sunni insurgents disclose their conditions for ceasefire in Iraq

Published: 09 February 2007

For the first time, one of Iraq's principal insurgent groups has set out the terms of a ceasefire that would allow American and British forces to leave the country they invaded almost four years ago.

The present terms would be impossible for any US administration to meet - but the words of Abu Salih Al-Jeelani, one of the military leaders of the Sunni Iraqi Islamic Resistance Movement show that the groups which have taken more than 3,000 American lives are actively discussing the opening of contacts with the occupation army.

Al-Jeelani's group, which also calls itself the "20th Revolution Brigades'', is the military wing of the original insurgent organisation that began its fierce attacks on US forces shortly after the invasion of 2003. The statement is, therefore, of potentially great importance, although it clearly represents only the views of Sunni Muslim fighters.

Shia militias are nowhere mentioned. The demands include the cancellation of the entire Iraqi constitution - almost certainly because the document, in effect, awards oil-bearing areas of Iraq to Shia and Kurds, but not to the minority Sunni community. Yet the Sunnis remain Washington's principal enemies in the Iraqi war.

"Discussions and negotiations are a principle we believe in to overcome the situation in which Iraqi bloodletting continues," al-Jeelani said in a statement that was passed to The Independent. "Should the Americans wish to negotiate their withdrawal from our country and leave our people to live in peace, then we will negotiate subject to specific conditions and circumstances."

Al-Jeelani suggests the United Nations, the Arab League or the Islamic Conference might lead such negotiations and would have to guarantee the security of the participants.

Then come the conditions:

* The release of 5,000 detainees held in Iraqi prisons as "proof of goodwill".

* Recognition "of the legitimacy of the resistance and the legitimacy of its role in representing the will of the Iraqi people".

* An internationally guaranteed timetable for all agreements.

* The negotiations to take place in public.

* The resistance "must be represented by a committee comprising the representatives of all the jihadist brigades".

* The US to be represented by its ambassador in Iraq and the most senior commander.

It is not difficult to see why the Americans would object to those terms. They will not want to talk to men they have been describing as "terrorists" for the past four years. And if they were ever to concede that the "resistance" represented "the will of the Iraqi people" then their support for the elected Iraqi government would have been worthless.

Indeed, the insurgent leader specifically calls for the "dissolution of the present government and the revoking of the spurious elections and the constitution..."

He also insists that all agreements previously entered into by Iraqi authorities or US forces should be declared null and void.

But there are other points which show that considerable discussion must have gone on within the insurgency movement - possibly involving the group's rival, the Iraqi Islamic Army.

They call, for example, for the disbandment of militias and the outlawing of militia organisations - something the US government has been urging the Iraqi Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, to do for months.

The terms also include the legalisation of the old Iraqi army, an "Anglo-American commitment to rebuild Iraq and reconstruct all war damage" - something the occupying powers claim they have been trying to do for a long time - and integrating "resistance fighters" into the recomposed army.

Al-Jeelani described President George Bush's new plans for countering the insurgents as "political chicanery" and added that "on the field of battle, we do not believe that the Americans are able to diminish the capability of the resistance fighters to continue the struggle to liberate Iraq from occupation ...

"The resistance groups are not committing crimes to be granted a pardon by America, we are not looking for pretexts to cease our jihad... we fight for a divine aim and one of our rights is the liberation and independence of our land of Iraq."

There will, the group says, be no negotiations with Mr Maliki's government because they consider it "complicit in the slaughter of Iraqis by militias, the security apparatus and death squads". But they do call for the unity of Iraq and say they "do not recognise the divisions among the Iraqi people".

It is not difficult to guess any American response to those proposals. But FLN [National Liberation Front] contacts with France during the 1954-62 war of independence by Algeria began with such a series of demands - equally impossible to meet but which were eventually developed into real proposals for a French withdrawal.

What is unclear, of course, is the degree to which al-Jeelani's statement represents the collective ideas of the Sunni insurgents. And, ominously, no mention is made of al-Qa'ida.

Insurgents video: Shows downing of US helicopter

Video Said to Show U.S. Copter Shot Down

Feb 04 7:52 PM US/Eastern

By ROBERT H. REID
Associated Press Writer

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- The U.S. command has ordered changes in flight operations after four helicopters were shot down in the last two weeks, the chief military spokesman said Sunday, acknowledging for the first time that the aircraft were lost to hostile fire.
The crashes, which began Jan. 20, follow insurgent claims that they have received new stocks of anti-aircraft weapons _ and a recent boast by Sunni militants that "God has granted new ways" to threaten U.S. aircraft. Al-Jazeera aired video late Sunday showing one of the U.S. helicopters being hit in central Iraq and said it came from an insurgent Web site.

All four helicopters were shot down during a recent increase in violence, which an Interior Ministry official said has claimed nearly 1,000 lives in the past week alone. At least 103 people were killed or found dead Sunday, most of them in Baghdad, police reported.

Maj. Gen. William Caldwell told reporters that the investigations into the crashes of three Army and one private helicopters were incomplete but "it does appear they were all the result of some kind of anti- Iraqi ground fire that did bring those helicopters down."

It was the first time a senior figure in the U.S. Iraq command had said publicly that all four helicopters were shot down.

Despite the losses, Caldwell said it was premature to conclude that the threat to U.S. aircraft posed by Sunni insurgents and Shiite militiamen had increased dramatically.

"There's been an ongoing effort since we've been here to target our helicopters," Caldwell said. "Based on what we have seen, we're already making adjustments in our tactics and techniques and procedures as to how we employ our helicopters."

Caldwell did not elaborate, presumably for security reasons. In the past, defensive measures have included flying lower and faster, varying routes and using zigzag patterns over dangerous areas.

Three crashed in mostly Sunni areas and the fourth was shot down during fighting with Shiite cultists near Najaf. U.S. officials have accused Iran of providing sophisticated weapons to Shiite militants.

In December, a spokesman for Saddam Hussein's ousted Baath party, Khudair al-Murshidi, told The Associated Press in Damascus, Syria, that Sunni insurgents had received shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles and "we are going to surprise them," meaning U.S. forces.

Al-Murshidi did not say when or how the missiles were obtained.

Insurgents have used SA-7s, a shoulder-fired missile with an infrared homing device, against U.S. and British aircraft since 2003.

In an Internet statement, the al-Qaida-affilated Islamic State of Iraq claimed responsibility for the latest crash _ an Apache Longbow helicopter that went down Friday north of Baghdad, killing two crew members.

"We tell the enemies of God that the airspace of the Islamic State in Iraq is prohibited to your aircraft just like its lands are," the statement said. "God has granted new ways for the soldiers of the State of Iraq to confront your aircraft."

It was unclear whether the "new ways" referred to new and advanced anti-aircraft weapons _ such as SA-18 missiles _ or was simply a boast.

U.S. military helicopters are equipped with long-range sensors and devices to jam radar and infrared technology, but they have proven vulnerable to intense gunfire, as well as rocket-propelled grenades.

Al-Jazeera showed a grainy 15-second video, filmed from the ground, which showed a helicopter plunging with a trail of black smoke emanating from it. It said the video was of the Apache hit Friday near Taji in central Iraq. The authenticity of the video could not be immediately verified.

The crashes have occurred in the run-up to the new U.S.-Iraqi security crackdown, in which an additional 21,500 American troops and about 8,000 Iraqi soldiers are being sent mostly to Baghdad in another bid to quell sectarian violence.

Iraqi Lt. Gen. Abboud Gambar, a Shiite named to lead the crackdown, will take charge Monday and the operation will begin "very soon thereafter," U.S. adviser Col. Douglass Heckman said.

On Sunday, an Interior Ministry official said about 1,000 Iraqis _ including civilians, security forces and gunmen _ had been killed in the last week alone. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the figures.

Figures tallied by The Associated Press from police and government statements put the death toll from Jan. 28 until Saturday at 911.

That included 137 people killed Saturday in a massive truck bombing in the mostly Shiite Sadriyah market in central Baghdad. The explosion was fifth major bombing in less than a month against Shiite targets in Baghdad and Hillah.

It was also the deadliest in the capital since a string of car bombs and mortars killed at least 215 people in the Shiite district of Sadr City on Nov. 23.

Public anger over the attack welled up during a meeting Sunday between a delegation of Sadriyah residents and Iraqi parliament members. The head of the delegation, Talib Nawrouz, demanded that the government implement the new security plan quickly to end the bloodshed.

"We demand the government start the new security plan, implement the counter terrorism law, and support the families specially the injuries" he added.

Deputy parliament speaker Khalid al-Attiyah, a Shiite, expressed condolences and told the delegation that the bombing showed "what the future will be like if those terrorists take power."

But Caldwell, the military spokesman, urged Iraqis to be patient, warning that the upcoming crackdown would not improve security overnight.

"People must be patient. Give the government and coalition forces a chance to fully implement it. It will take some time for additional Iraqi and U.S. forces to be deployed," Caldwell said.


Associated Press correspondents Kim Gamel in Baghdad and Salah Nasrawi in Cairo, Egypt, contributed to this report.

America fighting militia trained, equipped by U.S.

Posted on Thu, Feb. 01, 2007

Mahdi Army gains strength through unwitting aid of U.S. By Tom Lasseter McClatchy Newspapers BAGHDAD, Iraq - The U.S. military drive to train and equip Iraq's security forces has unwittingly strengthened anti-American Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army militia, which has been battling to take over much of the capital city as American forces are trying to secure it. U.S. Army commanders and enlisted men who are patrolling east Baghdad, which is home to more than half the city's population and the front line of al-Sadr's campaign to drive rival Sunni Muslims from their homes and neighborhoods, said al-Sadr's militias had heavily infiltrated the Iraqi police and army units that they've trained and armed. "Half of them are JAM. They'll wave at us during the day and shoot at us during the night," said 1st Lt. Dan Quinn, a platoon leader in the Army's 1st Infantry Division, using the initials of the militia's Arabic name, Jaish al Mahdi. "People (in America) think it's bad, but that we control the city. That's not the way it is. They control it, and they let us drive around. It's hostile territory." The Bush administration's plan to secure Baghdad rests on a "surge" of some 17,000 more U.S. troops to the city, many of whom will operate from small bases throughout Baghdad. Those soldiers will work to improve Iraqi security units so that American forces can hand over control of the area and withdraw to the outskirts of the city. The problem, many soldiers said, is that the approach has been tried before and resulted only in strengthening al-Sadr and his militia. Amid recurring reports that al-Sadr is telling his militia leaders to stash their arms and, in some cases, leave their neighborhoods during the American push, U.S. soldiers worry that the latest plan could end up handing over those areas to units that are close to al-Sadr's militant Shiite group. "All the Shiites have to do is tell everyone to lay low, wait for the Americans to leave, then when they leave you have a target list and within a day they'll kill every Sunni leader in the country. It'll be called the `Day of Death' or something like that," said 1st Lt. Alain Etienne, 34, of Brooklyn, N.Y. "They say, `Wait, and we will be victorious.' That's what they preach. And it will be their victory." Quinn agreed. "Honestly, within six months of us leaving, the way Iranian clerics run the country behind the scenes, it'll be the same way here with Sadr," said Quinn, 25, of Cleveland. "He already runs our side of the river." Four senior American military representatives in Baghdad declined requests for comment. Al-Sadr's success in infiltrating Iraqi security forces says much about the continued inability of American commanders in Iraq to counter the classic insurgent tactic of using popular support to trump superior military firepower. Lacking attack helicopters and other sophisticated weapons, al-Sadr's men have expanded their empire with borrowed trucks and free lunches for militiamen. After U.S. units pounded al-Sadr's men in August 2004, the cleric apparently decided that instead of facing American tanks, he'd use the Americans' plans to build Iraqi security forces to rebuild his own militia. So while Iraq's other main Shiite militia, the Badr Brigade, concentrated in 2005 on packing Iraqi intelligence bureaus with high-level officers who could coordinate sectarian assassinations, al-Sadr went after the rank and file. His recruits began flooding into the Iraqi army and police, receiving training, uniforms and equipment either directly from the U.S. military or from the American-backed Iraqi Defense Ministry. The infiltration by al-Sadr's men, coupled with his strength in Iraq's parliament after U.S.-backed elections, gave him leeway to operate death squads throughout the capital, according to more than a week of interviews with American soldiers patrolling Baghdad. Some U.S.-trained units carried out sectarian killings themselves, while others, manning checkpoints, allowed militiamen to pass. Al-Sadr's gunmen got another boost in 2005 and 2006 when American commanders handed over many Baghdad neighborhoods east of the Tigris River to Iraqi units, transitions that often were accompanied by news releases that contained variations of the phrase "Iraqis in the lead." "There's been a lot of push to transition to Iraqis so you can show progress, but have you secured the area?" said Capt. Aaron Kaufman, a Washington, Iowa, native who works for a unit that acts as a liaison between U.S. and Iraqi forces in the Shiite enclave of Kadhamiya, across the river from east Baghdad. "I think the political pressure has hurt. ... You're wishing away, you're assuming away enemy activity, and you hurt yourself doing that." In hindsight, many American officers said there was too much pressure to give Iraqi army units their own areas of operation, a process that left Iraqi soldiers outmanned, outgunned and easy targets for infiltration and coercion. "There was a decision ... that was probably made prematurely," said Lt. Col. Eric Schacht, a 42-year-old battalion commander in east Baghdad from Glen Mills, Pa. "I think we jumped the gun a little bit." Al-Sadr's militia has taken advantage of the chaos. Iraqi soldiers, for example, often were pushed into the field by Iraqi commanders who didn't give them adequate food, clothing or shelter, said Etienne, a 1st Infantry Division platoon leader. Etienne was on patrol one day when he saw Iraqi soldiers eating fresh vegetables and meat. The afternoon before, the same soldiers had complained that they had only scraps of food left. Who'd brought them their meal? It had come courtesy of Muqtada al-Sadr. "Who's feeding the Iraqi army? Nobody. So JAM will come around and give them food and water," Etienne said. "We try to capture hearts and minds, well, JAM has done that. They're further along than us." There's been ample evidence - despite claims to the contrary by American and Iraqi officials - that the death-squad activity isn't isolated to a few troops loyal to al-Sadr. In the southeastern Baghdad neighborhood of Zafrainyah, an entire national police brigade was sent to be retrained last year- and much of its leadership was replaced - after its officers kidnapped 24 Sunnis, took them to a meat-processing plant and killed them. Last month, four members of a neighborhood council in Etienne's sector - a mixed Sunni-Shiite area that abuts an al-Sadr stronghold - were leaving a meeting when national police trucks pulled up and men in Iraqi military uniforms piled out. They grabbed the four men in broad daylight. One of the council members struggled. He was shot in the head and left to die on the street. The remaining three were blindfolded and driven to a house. One of the four, a Shiite, listened as his two Sunni colleagues begged for their lives between beatings. "They were pistol-whipping them and kicking them," Etienne said. "Finally, he heard the sound of a drill." When the man's blindfold was taken off, he found that he was covered with the blood of his two friends, who were slumped over dead with drill holes in their heads. "It was (al-Sadr's militia). They were trying to figure out who's who, and killing Sunnis," Etienne said. "They borrowed the vehicles from their friends in the Iraqi army and police who are Mahdi-affiliated." A patrol from Etienne's company stopped by a Sunni neighborhood in east Baghdad last week. Two days earlier, three 60 mm mortar rounds fired from a nearby Shiite area, presumably by al-Sadr's militiamen, had hit a group of children who were playing on a rooftop. Two children died, and another lost most of a leg. A funeral tent stood empty in the middle of the street. A soldier with a U.S. Army tactical human-intelligence team - who goes only by his last name, Brady, because of the sensitivity of his work - gathered a group of Sunni men to ask about neighborhood security. One of the men, who said his name was Abbas al Dulaimi, asked, "When the Mahdi Army comes here, why does the Iraqi army help them shoot people?" "I was behind a car at the checkpoint on the bridge. I saw an Iraqi army soldier open the trunk," said another man, who gave only his first name, Ahmed. "There were two men in there. The driver showed the soldier his Mahdi Army ID, and the soldier saluted him and let him drive away." Brady didn't contradict any of the accounts. He took careful notes, shaking his head sympathetically at their stories of an Iraqi army gone astray. He handed out a business card with a cell phone number to call in case of another Mahdi Army attack. "We will send Iraqi army units that we trust," Brady said. Abbas al Dulaimi stared at Brady, a blond man sitting in a circle of Iraqis, and spoke as if he were explaining something to a child. "But if the Mahdi Army comes in here," Abbas al Dulaimi said, "they will come with the support of the Iraqi army." Brady didn't contradict him.

US seeks war wit Sadr army: dlplomat

ANALYSIS-Iraqis see U.S. push against Sadr's Mehdi Army
01 Jan 2007 18:20:11 GMT
By Mariam Karouny

BAGHDAD, Jan 1 (Reuters) - U.S.-led forces are likely to launch a limited New Year offensive against Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's Mehdi Army militia, blamed for sectarian death squad killings, senior Iraqi officials say.

The Pentagon, in a report last month, described Mehdi Army militias as the biggest threat to Iraq's security and diplomats say Washington is impatient to confront them.

Several officials in the Shi'ite political parties that dominate Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's unity government also say they are losing patience with Sadr's supporters and predict more raids like last week's joint U.S.-Iraqi operation in which a senior Sadr aide was killed.

"There will be limited and targeted operations against members of the Mehdi Army," a senior Shi'ite official told Reuters. "The ground is full of surprises but we think around Jan. 5 there will be some operations. I can say no more."

British forces in the southern oil province of Basra have also been conducting major raids against groups they describe as "rogue Mehdi Army", some entrenched in Iraqi police units.

Last week, British troops blew up the headquarters of Basra's Major Crimes Unit and said they freed tortured prisoners.

"The Americans want a war with the Mehdi Army," said a Western diplomat in Baghdad, who is not American or British.

"They want to get rid of the militia and it seems they will succeed in getting one."

MALIKI BOLSTERED

Sadr's supporters twice launched armed uprisings against the U.S. occupation in 2004 but have since formally joined the U.S.-sponsored political process.

A handful of Sadr's ministers suspended their participation in Maliki's government and his 30 members of parliament have also been staying away since Maliki approved a renewal of the U.S. forces' U.N. mandate a month ago.

But Maliki's fragile authority among his fellow Shi'ite's has been bolstered by Saturday's hanging of Saddam Hussein, whose Sunni-led administration oppressed the Shi'ite majority.

While he negotiates to end a boycott of the cabinet by moderates in Sadr's movement, other Shi'ite leaders are pushing for a crackdown on Sadr militants.

"They are jeopardising all our efforts and achievements," said a senior official from another group in the main United Alliance bloc of which Sadr's group is a key part.

Hundreds of Iraqis are being killed every week and hundreds of thousands have fled. Many Sunnis accuse Sadr's movement of being behind many death squad killings, a charge Sadr himself denies. They also accuse them of being controlled by Washington's enemies in neighbouring, Shi'ite Islamist Iran.

Impressions among Sunnis of being victims of triumphal Shi'ite militias have been reinforced by video of Saddam's hanging, in which official observers chanted "Moqtada, Moqtada, Moqtada!" and taunted the former leader on the gallows.

Maliki has repeatedly said since taking office eight months ago that he will disband all militias but has asked for patience and insists the main threat is from Sunni insurgents.

Several political sources said Maliki, from the Dawa party and a compromise choice as premier who owed his appointment to support from the populist Sadr, was trying to give political negotiations with Sadr a last chance before any crackdown.

Last month, a government delegation to Najaf failed to persuade the cleric to end his boycott, however, and Maliki has said he still plans a cabinet reshuffle that government officials say could involve removing some Sadrist ministers.

The head of the Sadrists bloc in the parliament said the group was working with members in the Alliance on a proposal to reschedule the timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. troops which then will end their boycott of the parliament.

"In response to our demands we are working with others in the Alliance on a proposal for the timetable of withdrawal. This will help ending the boycott," Nassar al Rubaie told Reuters.

Rubaie accused U.S. commanders of trying to lure Sadr into a direct confrontation but said that he would not be provoked.

But other members of the Alliance said Sadr had no choice but more clearly to disown militant Mehdi Army commanders. He has done so more than once, and even arrested some, but critics remain unconvinced that Sadr is genuine in those efforts:

"These people will only respond to force and this is what they will get," the senior Alliance official said. "A decisive battle is not agreed yet but limited operations just began."

(Additional reporting by Alastair Macdonald)

Analysis: Iraq militias run police chiefs

By Pamela Hess
UPI Pentagon Correspondent
Dec. 21, 2006 at 2:03PM

Some 20 percent to 25 percent of the leadership of Iraqi national police units may need to be replaced because of their militia ties and activities, a top U.S. official said Tuesday.
"We believe that ...about 20 to 25 percent of (the national police leaders) probably needed to be weeded out," said Lt. Gen. Martin Dempsey, the commander of the U.S. military's effort to train Iraqi forces.

"There's reams, really, of anecdotal evidence (of sectarian violence being carried out by Iraqi forces), and then there are some specific cases where we have actually either caught individuals in the act or groups in the act. And the number of those instances is rather low," said Dempsey, the commander of Multi-National Security Transition Command-Iraq.

On Tuesday, the U.S. military in Iraq announced that a battalion commander from the 1st Iraqi national police division was arrested and relieved of duty Dec. 18 for allowing Iraqi police officers to illegally arrest two brothers at a security checkpoint in Baghdad. The brothers were loaded into separate cars that departed in different directions, according to the U.S. military.
The incident was uncovered and investigated by the deputy commander of the national police headquarters. Dempsey said the Iraq Interior Minister's internal affairs directorate has brought thousands of such cases forward to the interior minister who has passed most of them of them on to the criminal court, and many have been adjudicated. Dempsey did not have exact numbers.

There are some 25,000 Iraqi National Police, an official counter-terrorist force. When it became clear this summer that some of the police were involved in sectarian violence in Baghdad which they had been brought in to fight, a decision was made to pull the brigades offline and put them through a four week re-training program during which officers were polygraphed and investigated for potential militia ties.
Two of the nine brigades have been through the retraining.

"We've actually seen some pretty significant change in those units that go through that process and a fairly whole-scale change of leaders in those units," Dempsey said.
"If the battalion and brigade commanders are active, engaged, and honest things go well. If not, things do not go well," he said.

"A 'bad' battalion will usually have a bad battalion commander and 70 or so policemen or soldiers who follow him," Dempsey told UPI. "The bad commander usually pulls these guys around him as his personal security detail and then he uses them for all the wrong reasons."
Dempsey said militia influence was exerted both passively and actively.

"By passive influence, I mean security forces that might turn a blind eye to a particular act or allow something to pass through a checkpoint that shouldn't pass through a checkpoint," he said. "The answer to get at that is actually training, discipline and leadership."

"The more insidious one, of course, is active militia or sectarian conduct. And that's essentially criminal, and that has to be weeded out, and those individuals have to be brought to trial or imprisoned in a way you would any other common criminal," Dempsey said.

"The long-term answer, of course, is these reform programs, which are a combination of reorganizations to, in most cases, flatten the organization and limit the number of directors in there that can influence things," Dempsey said.

He said it will take about another year of retraining and re-vetting before the security forces are free of militia influence.

"The way you get at militias is you isolate the extreme ends of it," Dempsey said.

Dempsey said there is a "big pile of people" in the middle of Iraq engaged in a political fight for the future of Iraq, but the military's focus is on attack the extremists on either side.

"On each side, on the Sunni side and on the Shia side make no mistake about it there's a core of extremists who have no desire for that political process in the middle to work. That's not a large number, but, you know, it doesn't take much to get three or four suicide bombers to drive into a marketplace and kill 150 people," he said.

The involvement of Iraqi national police -- and to a lesser extent, Iraqi army commanders -- in sectarian attacks on civilians has fomented mistrust of the armed forces. Dempsey said that may be more harmful to Iraq's stability than the violence.

"There is a level of mistrust in this country that has accrued over the last six months or so that ..is just as insidious as the literal acts of violence. In fact, for the long-term welfare of Iraq, the culture of mistrust may be the more dangerous threat to us," Dempsey said.

December 19, 2006

December 19, 2006

Attacks in Iraq at Record High, Pentagon Says

By DAVID S. CLOUD and MICHAEL R. GORDON

WASHINGTON, Dec. 18 — A Pentagon assessment of security conditions in Iraq concluded Monday that attacks against American and Iraqi targets had surged this summer and autumn to their highest level, and called violence by Shiite militants the most significant threat in Baghdad.

The report, which covers the period from early August to early November, found an average of almost 960 attacks against Americans and Iraqis every week, the highest level recorded since the Pentagon began issuing the quarterly reports in 2005, with the biggest surge in attacks against American-led forces. That was an increase of 22 percent from the level for early May to early August, the report said.

While most attacks were directed at American forces, most deaths and injuries were suffered by the Iraqi military and civilians.

--MORE--

If Britons(and Americans) an join the Israeli army, those who fight for Palestine can't be treated as terrorists

Comment

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There has to be equality

If Britons can join the Israeli army, those who fight for Palestine can't be treated as terrorists

Ismail Patel
Tuesday December 5, 2006
The Guardian

The Arab-Israeli conflict is unlike any other regional conflict. As the UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, put it: "No other conflict carries such a powerful symbolic and emotional charge among people far removed from the battlefield." Not surprisingly, this has had its impact on multicultural Britain, with different communities aligning themselves to varying degrees with the Israeli and Palestinian causes.

Everyone in a democracy has the right to argue for their views and engage in public debate. But there is no equality when it comes to how the British government treats those who want to give physical support to Israel and those who want to do the same for the Palestinians. Such double standards feed resentment in Britain's Muslim community at the government's failure to recognise its legitimate grievances, as highlighted in yesterday's report by the thinktank Demos.

In recent months the media have reported on the recruitment of British Jews to fight in the Israeli army, now in its 40th year of occupation of Palestinian territory in defiance of international law and UN resolutions. Some are intending to emigrate; others to return to Britain after serving in the Israeli army. But we have not had a word of concern from the British government. In the Muslim community, however, the question is widely raised as to how British citizens can travel to another country and fight in its army of illegal occupation without any repercussions. Would that be the case if, say, a young Muslim or Briton of Palestinian origin travelled to the occupied Palestinian territories - let alone occupied Iraq - to protect his or her homeland or co-religionists? Of course not: such volunteers could expect to be arrested under this government's anti-terrorism legislation as soon as they returned.

These Britons who go to fight for Israel are volunteering to serve in the frontline of Israel's war in the illegally occupied territories of the West Bank and Gaza. Some have acknowledged that they have been or will be engaged in the killing of Palestinians. Under international law they and those who facilitate their enlistment are committing war crimes.

Presumably the politicians' silence can be explained by Britain's support for the Israeli government, both diplomatic and military. But how does that sit with the government's regular homilies to the Muslim community about citizenship and loyalty to the flag? It might be argued that as Israel is a state - unlike the Palestinian Authority or Palestinian political organisations - and Britons are entitled to dual citizenship, with any military-service obligations that entails, there can be no objection. But the fact that the Palestinian people have no state is of course at the heart of this uniquely internationally inflammatory conflict. And those fighting against the illegal occupation of their land are entitled to do so under international law.

The British government's indifference to this recruitment is feeding the alienation and radicalisation of young Muslims, who can be labelled terrorists for even voicing support for the Palestinians.

Perhaps British citizens should not serve in foreign armies full stop. But the essential point is that there must be equality. If Britons are allowed to join the Israeli army, the same right should be accorded to those - particularly of Palestinian origin - who wish to volunteer to defend lands Israel occupies. Alternatively, both should be barred.

We need a shift in approach at the top. Tony Blair has expressed his desire to bring peace to the Middle East, but his actions - most recently his refusal to condemn Israel's Beit Hanoun massacre at the UN - scarcely suggest an honest broker. At home and in the Middle East, it is time the British government showed some real even-handedness.

· Ismail Patel is chair of the Leicester-based campaign Friends of Al-Aqsa
iap_foa@yahoo.co.uk

Murderer's Meeting With A Murderer

Bush's Meeting With A Murderer Robert Dreyfuss December 04, 2006 Robert Dreyfuss is an Alexandria, Va.-based writer specializing in politics and national security issues. He is the author of Devil's Game: How the United States Helped Unleash Fundamentalist Islam (Henry Holt/Metropolitan Books, 2005), a contributing editor at The Nation and a writer for Mother Jones, The American Prospect and Rolling Stone. He can be reached through his website, www.robertdreyfuss.com. President George W. Bush meets today with Abdel Aziz al-Hakim, the turbaned leader of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), a Shiite fundamentalist party that is strongly tied to Iran. In so doing, the president is meeting with someone who, perhaps more than anyone else in Iraq, is responsible for trying to destroy Iraqi national unity, prevent national reconciliation among Iraq’s ethnic and sectarian mix, and push Iraq into civil war. Al-Hakim, who was virtually Fed-Ex’d into Iraq by the Pentagon in March 2003, was a mainstay of the Iraqi National Congress, led by neoconservative darling Ahmed Chalabi throughout the 1990s. And today al-Hakim controls the SCIRI militia, the Badr Brigade, the Iraqi interior ministry and many of Iraq’s feared death squads. Not to put too fine a point on it, Hakim is a mass murderer. What’s stunning about Bush’s encounter with al-Hakim is that it occurs precisely at the moment when critically important bridges are being built across Iraq’s Sunni-Shiite divide—bridges that al-Hakim is trying to blow up. During a stop in Amman, Jordan, on his way to the United States, al-Hakim point blank tried to torpedo the idea of an international conference that might bring together Iraq’s various factions. Such a conference was explicitly proposed by U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan last week, who offered to host it. A similar conference, or one like it, is likely to be part of the recommendations that will be issued on Wednesday by the Iraq Study Group, the panel co-chaired by former Secretary of State James Baker and former Indiana Representative Lee Hamilton. But al-Hakim trashes the idea. “It is unreasonable or incorrect to discuss issues related to the Iraqi people at international conferences,” said the Shiite radical. “The proposal is unrealistic, incorrect and illegal.” (It is, of course, perfectly legal.) It is not the first time that al-Hakim has tried to undermine reconciliation efforts. During repeated attempts by the Arab League to organize a conference that would bring Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish leaders together with representatives of the armed resistance in search of an accord, al-Hakim almost single-handedly destroyed the idea. And it is al-Hakim, whose SCIRI controls much of Iraq’s south, who is the driving force behind efforts to create a separatist Shiite-run state in Iraq’s south. Hakim’s wrecking-ball effort is taking place in the context of unprecedented efforts by leaders of Iraq’s factions to create what many Iraqi leaders are calling a “government of national salvation.” Such a government would topple and replace the ineffectual, clownish Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. Supporters of the idea, who are getting ready to announce a National Salvation Front in Iraq, include rebel cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, many of Iraq’s Sunni leaders in and out of government, representatives of the Iraqi resistance and perhaps even some important Kurdish leaders. Last week, when the feckless Maliki traveled to Jordan to meet Bush, Muqtada al-Sadr ordered his 30 members of parliament to suspend their participation and pulled five cabinet ministers out of Maliki’s government. Sadr’s Mahdi Army, one of the most powerful of Iraq’s armed factions and one which has been involved in death squads and assassinations itself, controls large parts of east Baghdad and many areas of the south, and they have fiercely opposed Hakim’s SCIRI. According to Sadr, his political forces will not rejoin the government until the United States has announced a timetable for the end of the U.S. occupation of Iraq. Sadr is now reaching out to Sunni and Kurdish leaders to form an anti-occupation bloc that will represent the vast majority of Iraqi public opinion. Polls have shown that up to 80 percent of Sunni Arabs and 60 percent of Shiite Arabs want an immediate end to the occupation. Among those supporting the new National Salvation Front, along with Sadr, are Saleh Mutlaq, the Sunni leader of Iraq’s National Dialogue Front; Tariq al-Hashemi, a leader of the Iraqi Islamic Party; former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, and many others. According to the Iraqi newspaper Al-Arab Al-Yawm, Mutlaq described the front as a broad cross-section of Iraqis opposed to the U.S. occupation: Mutlaq added that the new front will include a number of groups that are not participating in the current Iraqi government including Baathists, pan-Arabists, the Founding Conference that includes 46 political movements, the old Iraqi army leadership, and tribal leaders from the middle and south of Iraq. In addition, the front will include representatives from Turcoman, Yazidi, and Kurdish patriotic leaders who are against the occupation and for Iraq's unity, and other Christian movements that believe in Iraq's unity. Mutlaq also said that seven leading Iraqi Shiite ayatollahs will support the new grouping. Even as the National Salvation Front takes shape, there is strong evidence that Sunni and Shiite clerics are reaching out to each other. Two weeks ago, Muqtada al-Sadr demanded that Sunni clerics issue a fatwa , or religious order, condemning killings of Iraqi civilians by al-Qaida types and offering Sunni help to rebuild the domed mosque in Samarra that was destroyed in a bombing in February. It was that bombing that touched over the most severe phase of Iraq’s civil war, setting of a wave of reprisal killings among Shiites and Sunnis. Since Sadr’s call, several leading Sunni clerics have done as Sadr asked, according to the Los Angeles Times, including top Sunni religious leaders in Basra, Nasariyah, Amarah and Samaweh. All four were associated with the Association of Muslim Scholars (AMS), the leading Sunni religious group in Iraq, which has close ties to the Sunni insurgency. Not only that, but Harith al-Dhari, the leader of the AMS, issued a blunt condemnation of al-Qaida: Al Qaeda is part of the resistance, but the resistance is of two kinds. The resistance that only resists occupation, this we support one hundred per cent. The resistance that mixes up resisting the occupation and killing innocents, even if it calls itself resistance, this we condemn. Two weeks ago, the Iraqi interior ministry, which is heavily controlled by Hakim’s SCIRI, issued an arrest warrant for al-Dhari, accusing him of maintaining ties to “terrorists.” This sort of inter-communal reconciliation is precisely what Iraq needs. Furthermore, to build it will require that Iraqis come together on the one issue about which most of them agree: ending the U.S. occupation. There is, without doubt, a majority of Iraq’s parliament opposed to the occupation. To create a replacement government of anti-U.S. Iraqis, who would then demand that the United States leave Iraq, would be a difficult task at best, because of the very presence of 150,000 U.S. troops and America’s overbearing ambassador, Zalmay Khalilzad. Furthermore, it is a fragile effort: a major assassination or targeted violence could shatter it before it even gets off the ground. Still, it is perhaps Iraq’s last, best hope for ending its civil war and starting to recreate a functioning state. Against this, there is talk inside the Bush administration, of “picking a winner,” of choosing sides in Iraq’s civil war—which, of course, means backing the Shiites. Such a notion is a nonstarter, if for no other reason than the question: Which Shiites? For the Bush administration, it could only mean SCIRI, Hakim’s band of thugs and assassins. If so, it would be the last, ugly mistake for President Bush’s merry band of incompetents, bunglers and war criminals. The release of the Baker-Hamilton report on Iraq on Wednesday will signal the end of the Bush administration’s neoconservative-driven war policy, and the beginning of a new, realist-dominated consensus that America’s foreign policy establishment hopes will restore some of the U.S. prestige and influence that has been eviscerated by Bush’s invasion of Iraq. It is too much, perhaps, to expect from the Bush administration, but here’s an idea. Instead of trying to court Hakim and SCIRI to support a continued U.S. occupation of Iraq, the White House ought to acknowledge and heed the growing body of opinion in Iraq that wants the United States out, fast.

Kofi Annan: Situation in Iraq 'much worse' than civil war

Annan says Iraq in grip of civil war
Sun Dec 3, 2006 10:42 PM GMT

By Aseel Kami

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said Iraq was in the grip of civil war as U.S. and Iraqi forces attacked insurgent bases in a bid to shore up the authority of a government itself riven by factional rivalries.

In Washington, outgoing U.S. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was revealed to have acknowledged in a memo just before he lost his job that U.S. strategy was not working and it might be better to reduce troop numbers.

President George W. Bush has repeatedly rejected recent assertions in the mainstream media that Iraq is now embroiled in a civil war. Annan's remarks, to the BBC, might add to pressure for a swift change of policy.

"When we had the strife in Lebanon and other places, we called that a civil war -- this is much worse," Annan said.

He agreed with Iraqis who said life was worse now than it was under deposed president Saddam Hussein.

"If I were an average Iraqi obviously I would make the same comparison -- that they had a dictator who was brutal but they had their streets, they could go out, their kids could go to school and come back home without a mother or father worrying, 'Am I going to see my child again?" Annan said.

"And the Iraqi government has not been able to bring the violence under control," he added.

In western Anbar province, two U.S. soldiers were killed by a roadside bomb on Saturday and three Marines died from wounds sustained from enemy action, the U.S. military said.

The Rumsfeld memo, written a day before voter dismay over Iraq cost the Republicans control of Congress, said: "It is time for a major adjustment. Clearly, what U.S. forces are currently doing in Iraq is not working well enough or fast enough."

Rumsfeld, a leading planner of the Iraq war, outlined several options but endorsed none.

Among them were reductions in U.S. forces and bases and a recasting of the U.S. goals there. He suggested cutting U.S. bases to just five from 55 by mid-2007.

MARKET ATTACK

The presence of 140,000 U.S. troops and the loss of more than 2,800 American lives in the past 3-1/2 years has failed to end bloodshed in Iraq.

Sectarian violence between Saddam's once-dominant Sunni minority and the newly empowered Shi'ite Muslim majority claimed a record 3,700 lives in October, the United Nations estimated, and the latest Iraqi data suggested civilian deaths rose by more than another 40 percent last month alone.

Fifty-one people were killed at a Baghdad market on Saturday by a triple car bomb attack, 10 days after the worst attack of the conflict killed over 200 people in the capital.

The Rumsfeld memo adds to a debate expected to gather steam when the bipartisan Iraq Study Group gives its recommendations on Wednesday. The group, co-chaired by former Secretary of State James Baker, a long-time Bush family adviser, is widely expected to inform a possible shift in U.S. strategy.

RAIDS

In Iraq, U.S. troops and the Iraqi forces the Americans are counting on to take on the burden of stifling civil war, were on the offensive in Baquba, a city 60 km (40 miles) northeast of Baghdad, the military said in a statement.

Baquba has seen Sunni insurgents, including al Qaeda Islamist militants, driving out Shi'ite Muslims, while Shi'ite militias have attacked Sunnis in surrounding areas. Three rebels were killed and 44 detained in the offensive, the military said.

Annan, who has proposed an eventual international conference on Iraq, which Baghdad's leaders have rejected, said Iraqis would have to unite to bring this about but needed outside help.

"But some of the key things they have to do is the constitutional review, really looking at issues of revenue sharing - oil and taxation revenues, how do you share it fairly," he said.

(Additional reporting by Alastair Macdonald)

Shi'ites, Sunnis amass arms

By Sharon Behn
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Published November 29, 2006

Rival Shi'ite and Sunni groups are massing their militias in expectation of major confrontations, Iraqis say, even as President Bush prepares to meet today with the nation's embattled prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki.

Mr. Bush's meeting in Jordan is part of a wider attempt to involve Iraq's neighbors in efforts to end Iraq's vicious sectarian violence before it spills over into a larger regional conflict.
But Iraqis on both sides of their nation's sectarian divide report worrisome signs that the conflict will soon evolve into pitched battles between large armed groups.

One secular Shi'ite speaking on the telephone from Baghdad said Shi'ite militias were massing in preparation for a large offensive against Sunnis in the capital.

"They had a big militarylike ceremony today for the Mahdi militia, to show their force. They are making themselves ready for something big -- protests, fighting, killing," said the Shi'ite.
A secular Sunni in close contact with one insurgent faction, said rebel Sunnis were also trying to form alliances among militias for a big push in the city against the Shi'ites, including more raids on government buildings.

"I am waiting for the Sunnis to launch a 'Tet Offensive.' That is the one plug they have not pulled yet, and I could see that happening," said senior Rand defense analyst Ed O'Connell.
The Tet Offensive was a series of attacks by the North Vietnamese and their Viet Cong allies that many consider a turning point in the war, leading eventually to the U.S. withdrawal.
Any emergence of pitched battles between massed groups of Sunnis and Shi'ites would largely settle a long-running argument in Washington over whether the conflict in Iraq should be described as a civil war -- a description the Bush administration has so far rejected.
However the depth of concern over the rising levels of violence is evident in the flurry of diplomacy leading to Mr. Bush's meeting with Mr. al-Maliki in Amman today.
Vice President Dick Cheney met with King Abdullah in Saudi Arabia on Saturday, and Iraqi President Jalal Talabani held talks Monday and yesterday with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and religious leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Both Iranian leaders pledged to help Iraq, but sharpened the political divisions with the United States by accusing Washington of destabilizing the region by supporting Sunni "outlaws."
King Abdullah II of Jordan, meanwhile, has said that "something dramatic" must come out of the meeting because Iraq is "beginning to spiral out of control."

While the Bush administration has been reluctant to recruit clearly hostile regimes in Tehran and Damascus into the Iraq effort, many analysts have concluded that there is no other choice.
"The only people who are going to be able to put this back into the box are not the American politicians or American military -- it is the Iranians, the Syrians, the Jordanians and the Saudis," said Mr. O'Connell.

An adviser to the Iraq Study Group, headed by former Secretary of State James A. Baker III, said any talks with Iran must deal more with the violence in Iraq than with Tehran's nuclear program.

If Mr. Cheney's meeting with the Saudis "was more about Iraq -- rather than Iran and the nuclear issue -- that would be a more hopeful sign," said the former U.S. military officer who would only speak on the condition of anonymity because of his involvement with the Iraq Study Group.

"There might be some indication that the administration is having dialogue with Iran about Iraq," he said.

Mr. al-Maliki is expected to ask Mr. Bush to set a timetable for removing U.S. troops from Iraq, although there are deep disagreements in Washington whether that would make matters better or worse.

There are also serious questions as to how much control Mr. al-Maliki has over his own government and country.

"Al-Maliki is heavily under the sway of [radical Shi'ite cleric Muqtada] al-Sadr. He is afraid of al-Sadr, is kowtowing to the Iranians, has no idea of how to deal with the United States, and is the worst possible candidate to lead the country out of this mess," said Mr. O'Connell.
Iraqis in Baghdad note that Mr. al-Maliki was pelted with rocks on Sunday when he went to visit grieving families in Sadr City -- once the base of his support.

Mr. Bush is expected to publicly reiterate his support for Mr. al-Maliki, but privately push the Iraqi leader to take effective action against the Shi'ite militias, particularly the Mahdi Army of Sheik al-Sadr.

"You are faced with the fact that Sadr has to be stopped, or you have to concede the battle of Baghdad to him," said security analyst Robert Killebrew.

"In the past 30 days, what we've got is the Sadr militia openly trying to take over Baghdad and run the Sunnis out, and we simply can't tolerate Sadr any longer," Mr. Killebrew said. "He has emerged as our number one problem in Iraq."

http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/20061128-115226-2217r.htm

Iran turns up the Heat

November 19, 2006

By Mike Whitney


By now, anyone with a lick of sense can see that the war in Iraq has been a dead-loss. Still, few people understand how it has disrupted the region’s strategic balance and is quickening America’s decline as a world power.

The US is already facing fierce headwinds in the near future with the deflating housing market, the falling dollar, and the growing prospects of a deep recession. A sudden realignment in the Middle East would be a major hit to the American economy. Even so, it’s looking more and more like big changes are on the way.

The problem is that American power is waning just as Iran’s is ascendant. This doesn’t bode well for the "Great Satan" whose economy relies on dependable sources of cheap oil.

Iran is playing a clever game in Iraq using US occupation forces to crush the Ba’athist-led resistance while expanding their influence via the Shiite militias. This is a "lose-lose" situation for the United States. American troops must continue to focus on one enemy while they inadvertently strengthen the other. How long will it be before the Bush administration sees that they’ve been supporting the very group which is most hostile to American interests?

The smarter strategy would have been to replace Saddam but leave the Ba’ath Party in power. That way civil services and government bureaucracy could have continued without radical changes to the entire system. The Bush plan was the fast-track to anarchy, a phenomenon which now grips the entire country. Undoubtedly, the veteran-diplomats in James Baker’s "Iraq Study Group" will want to engage the leaders of the Iraqi resistance as a last-ditch effort to cobble together a coalition government and stem the violence. But time is running out.

The mass kidnapping of 150 employees at the Education Ministry shows that the Shiite militias in the Interior Ministry are getting more brazen by the day. The gunmen stormed the building in broad daylight wearing government-issue uniforms and abducted their victims without a struggle. Prime Minister al-Maliki offered a feeble defense of the kidnappers saying that it was "not an act of terrorism" but merely a dispute between competing militias.

Al-Maliki has clearly cast his lot with his Shiite base.

While the militias do not take their orders directly from Tehran, it’s clear that there’s a tacit agreement between the two and their objectives are nearly identical. Both are determined to defeat the Sunni-led resistance so that the Ba’ath Party can never return to power. The mass abductions show that they are moving as quickly as possible to execute their strategy.

The US military has fallen into a trap and is (unwittingly) helping Iran expand its influence. In fact, Bush’s plan to increase troop-strength by 20,000 in Baghdad just makes it easier for the militias to operate. The heavy American presence on the streets and checkpoints forces the Sunni resistance to remain underground while the Shiite militias conduct their round-ups and raids with complete impunity. It’s no wonder they’ve stepped up operations in recent weeks. The talk of an American withdrawal following the midterms has only increased their determination to crush the resistance while American troops still provide cover.

Who could have imagined that US forces would be acting as security guards for Iranian-backed militias?

In fact, members of the Iranian political establishment like Pirouz Mojtahedzadeh are now openly calling "for the US to REMAIN in Iraq until it has established a strong, stable central government capable of providing adequate security." (Kim Murphy LA Times)

Of course, Iranians have to be discreet in their support for the ongoing occupation, but the truth is obvious; Bush is laying the groundwork for a fundamentalist regime in Baghdad by quashing the secular, Ba’athist-backed resistance.

Does Bush really believe he can control a Shiite-dominated government? Or does he really understand what’s going on?

Can’t he see that the US-Shiite alliance is simply a "marriage of convenience" that will end as soon as the Sunnis are sufficiently weakened and there is no longer a threat of them returning to power?

The Baker group was formed as a last-gasp attempt to avert the greatest foreign policy train-wreck in American history. It’s no surprise that Bush and Israeli PM Olmert decided to conduct their high-level meetings on the same day that the Iraq Study Group met in the Oval Office. It was clearly meant to subvert Baker’s impact on the news-cycle. As soon as Bush had used Baker as a prop for his public relations photo-op (showing Bush’s "openness to new ideas") the ex-diplomats were bundled out the servants’ exit so Bush could put the final touches on the plans for bombing Iran’s nuclear facilities.

The whole event was perfectly choreographed to marginalize Baker and undermine the group’s recommendations.

This just proves that Bush’s throttling in the midterm elections has had no effect whatsoever. He’s still firmly in Cheney’s clutches and edging ever-closer to Armageddon. There’s no indication that anything substantial has changed.

Cheney’s approach is fundamentally flawed. It will take more than laser-guided munitions or "bunker busting" bombs to beat Iran. In fact, that will only speed up America’s inevitable withdrawal from Iraq. Even if half of Iran is buried beneath glowing-nuclear rubble, they still have the wherewithal to take out every oil tanker, every oil field, every oil depot, every oil-platform, and every oil pipeline in the entire gulf region. How long will America’s teetering economy persist with its Middle East arteries slashed and oil futures shooting through the stratosphere.

Then, of course, Iran has the option of smuggling high-tech weaponry, anti-tank missiles and the whole array of military hardware into Iraq, where they can swiftly cut off supply-lines, wreak havoc across the country, and force an American retreat.

A war against Iran is a foolhardy scheme that has no chance of succeeding.

Communiqué connects Iran to Iraqi Militias

A chilling communiqué from the Shiite-led "Badr Brigade" has appeared in Alliraqnews. The message warns of an agreement between the Sunnis and the "Anglo-American occupation forces" which threatens the continued dominance of the Shiite-led government. Leaders from the Badr Brigade" intend to intensify their attacks on all "public offices and institutions", to "neutralize the activities of journalists, media and intellectuals", to undermine "any attempt to rebuild the Iraqi army", and prepare for "an armed confrontation" with the enemy.

The message calls on all Shiites, including employees in the "Ministry of Defense and Interior Ministry to join the Badr Brigade, the Mahdi Army, and the Al-Dawa Party, to continue stealing weapons and equipment" to get ready for the conflagration.

The communiqué adds ominously: "The government of the Islamic Republic of Iran, providing us with all weapons and equipment for the battle, as well as the preparations of troops from the Revolutionary Guards for rapid intervention near the border areas."

The message is signed by the Secretary-General Badr Organization.

Whether the communiqué is authentic or not is almost irrelevant. The blueprint is indistinguishable from the pattern of activity on the ground. The militias are using the occupation to strengthen their base and ready themselves for the inevitable confrontation with US forces. Behind the scenes, Iran is patiently waiting for America’s hourglass to run out of sand.

Prime Minister Al-Maliki has aligned himself with the main Shiite militias. He has issued a warrant for Harith al-Dhari, the head of Iraq’s prestigious Association of Muslim Scholars, on the charges of "inciting violence and terrorism among the Iraqi people". It is a baseless claim intended to drive the Sunnis to out of the government and set the stage for a Shiite dominated-regime.

The Sunnis have left according to plan. There will be no coalition government and civil war is all but certain. The bloodbath has just begun.

Bush has opened Pandora’s Box and there’ll be a terrible price to pay. He has allowed Iran to take root in Baghdad and upset the regional balance of power. Now, there really are no easy solutions. The only question is whether the impending holocaust is containable or if it will consume the entire region.