Militia Blues
A US soldier was killed and four wounded by rocket fire south of Baghdad.
Courtesy ABC News
The Guardian video does a report, streamed below, on the prospect that some of the 80,000 members of the Awakening Councils or Concerned Local Citizens in Diyala Province and elsewhere are going to go on strike. Many of them say that they haven't been paid for a while. Others complain about their continued subjection to the Shiite government (this complaint is common in Diyala Province). Still others resent the refusal of the al-Maliki government to integrate them into the formal state security services.
Al-Hayat writing in Arabic says that it is especially the Awakening Council members in Baghad who say they will strike
Meanwhile, this money graf doesn't strike me as promising:
' As of March 2008, fully a year and a half after the beginning of the sahwa movement, less than 11% of the 90,000-plus force has been integrated into the ISF. Moreover, the Maliki government has stated that under no circumstances will it integrate more than a quarter of these militants into the ISF. '
Mahdi Army militiamen in the southern Shiite city of Kut attacked police checkpoints late Thursday, setting off battles that only ended on Friday. AP writes, "Also Friday, U.S. and Iraqi forces raided neighborhoods of southern Baghdad and Diwaniyah, 80 miles south of the capital, detaining suspected members of the Mahdi Army, Iraqi police said."
A Sadrist member of parliament, Ahmad al-Masoudi (loyal to Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr), charged that the arrests of Sadrist leaders was intended to forestall a Sadrist victory in the October, 2008, provincial elections. He said that PM Nuri al-Maliki's Da'wa Party and his ally the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq were attempting to affect the course of the elections. AP reports:
' "They have no supporters in the central and southern provinces, but we do," Ahmed al-Massoudi told the AP. "If the crackdown against the Sadrists continues, we will begin consultations with other parliamentary blocs to bring down the government and replace it with a genuinely national one." '
AP also says that Shaikh Nasir al-Mashayikhi, a Sadrist cleric in Basra, warned against any attempt to arrest Sadrists in that southern port city:
' Basra is not Kut or Diwaniyah," he said. "Basra will turn into a cemetery for those who try to fight the Sadrists or detain them." '
AP says that the troubles in Kut and arrests in Baghdad raise questions about the durability of the current cease-fire of the Mahdi Army.
Labels: Iraq
posted by Juan Cole @ 3/22/2008 01:30:00 AM
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4 Comments:
It strikes me that the Maliki government has no interest in achieving reconciliation with the Sunnis, even if it's possible. If my suspicions are correct -- that members of the government are personally pocketing a portion of the $3 billion/week we are spending in Iraq -- reconciliation will only make it more likely we will leave, and end their gravy train.
The Sadrists and the Sunni 'Sahwa' groups are the true winners of the "surge". The Americans and (lately) Maliki cannot afford to upset either of them too much, or the whole house of cards comes down.
Until about 18 months ago the deal was that the Peshmerga and Badr militias would do what the Sunni Sahwa have done: clear out and hold areas with the Americans in the second line of fighting. But both the Peshmerga and Badr turned out to be worse than useless. They brutalize the defenseless civilians but run away as soon as they come under attack, or even hear rumors that they might be.
The Americans and Maliki are now at the mercy of the Sadrists and Sunnis. Maliki has just done a U-turn promising that ALL the Sahwa people would either be integrated the police and army, or be given civilian jobs. The Ameericans and the Iraqi government have pledged $155M each for employment and the rebuilding projects.
The Sadrists complaints are part justified and part to play the victims role in preparation for the Octber 1st Provincial elections. The most important outcomes will most likely be:
1) The end of the Hakim/Badr era in the south.
2) The expulsion of the Kurdish 75%representatives in Ninevah Province. Even the local Kurds are fed up with the granstanding of the mainly Barzani gangsters in the council for which the local Kurds are paying the price.
3) The end of the Badr rule in Diyala Province.
4) The control of Baghdad depends on whether the refugees get a chance to vote, and use it. Both are unlikely. But Badr will lose big time to the Sadrists in any case.
Toppling Maliki, or collapse of his government, means the final phase of the civil war.
Maliki's fall (along with its 'Constitution') is when the moderate Republican voter bloc gives up on the Iraq venture as a hopelessly failed investment. That means solid schism among partisan Republicans and propagates upward to the level of Senators. And that's when the political game comes to an end.
I regret the additional horror to average Iraqis that is to come with a Maliki fall, but if it means failure and an end made to the occupation.... Besser ein Ende mit Schrecken als Schrecken ohne Ende... grim and fatalistic German WW2 saying. (Better an end in horror than horror without end.)
Why haven't the awakening councils been paid? The amounts are trivial - who was supposed to pay them and where was the money supposed to come from?
Whoever's holding that money is really sticking a knife in Petraeus.
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