Police Mutiny, Refuse to attack Sadrists;
Clashes continue in Basra;
Sadrists open New fronts throughout Shiite South
Mahdi Army Militiamen, courtesy Al-Zaman of Baghdad.
Another US soldier was killed in Baghdad on Friday.
The Times of Baghdad reports in Arabic that clashes continued on Friday between Iraqi government forces and the Mahdi Army in Baghdad and the provinces of the middle Euphrates and the south, causing hundreds of casualties, including among women, children and the elderly. The fighting also did damage to Iraq's infrastructure, as well as to oil facilities and pipelines, damage that might run into the billions of dollars.
The US got drawn into the fighting on Friday. US planes bombed alleged Mahdi Army positions both in Basra and in Sadr City in Baghdad (as well as in Kadhimiya). Kadhimiya is a major Shiite shrine neighborhood in northwest Baghdad, and the spectacle of the US bombing it is very unlikely to win Washington any friends among Iraqi Shiites.
Despite the US intervention, government troops were unable to pierce Mahdi Army defenses or over-run their positions.
Al-Zaman says that the police force in Basra suffered numerous mutinies and instances of insubordination, with policemen refusing to fire on the Mahdi Army. The government response was to undertake a widespread purge of disloyal elements.
[Hmm. I wonder where fired policemen with combat training and guns could find another job . . . Maybe with the Mahdi Army?]
The Mahdi Army opened a number of new fronts in the fighting, in Nasiriya, Karbala, Hilla, and Diwaniya, as a means of reducing the pressure on its fighters in the holy city of Karbala. Local medical officials reported 36 dead in the fighting in Nasiriya.
The Mahdi Army used its position near Nasiriya to attack government troops attempting to go south to join the effort in Basra, and is said to have inflicted substantial casualties on them.
In Baghdad, Mahdi Army fighters clashed with government forces in 31 districts.
In the meantime, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki called for a decisive military victory and rejected calls by southern tribal sheikhs and a large number of Shiite ayatollahs for him to engage in dialogue and negotiation in order to reach a ceasefire and to save civilians who are threatened with a humanitarian catastrophe from shortages of water and food, as well as lack of medical care.
At the same time, Al-Zaman maintains, the Sadrists stipulated that al-Maliki and his brother-in-law, who heads the emergency forces that have been sent down to Basra from Baghdad and Basra, must withdraw.
The Iraqi minister of defense, Abdul Qadir Jasim, admitted in a news conference in Basra that the militiamen had taken the Iraqi security forces off guard. He added that the Iraqi government had expected this operation to be routine, but was surprised at the level of resistance, and was forced to change its plans and tactics.
Minister of Foreign Affairs Hoshyar Zebari said that the government intends to defeat the Sadrists, but said he did not know how long the endeavor would take.
The attempt of parliament to meet and take up the issue of the battle with the Mahdi Army failed when the federal legislature could not muster a quorum. The session then turned into a mere discussion session. Al-Hayat, writing in Arabic, says that one reason that parliament could not get a quorum was that the Kurdistan Alliance and the United Iraqi Alliance (Shiite) support al-Maliki and boycotted the session.
The tableau above is tragicomic. The Iraqi security forces haven't even begun to take key Mahdi Army territory in Basra, and in fact have been rebuffed. The Mahdi Army claims to have captured heavy arms and even Iraqi soldiers from the government. The minister of defense admits that Baghdad was surprised at the level of resistance to the campaign. (After the spring of 2004? Why?) The British contingent of 4,000 troops out at the airport is not getting involved, raising questions as to what they are doing there.
McClatchy reports civil war violence in Iraq for Friday:
' Baghdad
Gunmen capture a National Police patrol in al-Amin neighbourhood, east Baghdad at 10 am today. The US military and Iraqi security forces have intervened to find out the fate of the 3 policemen in the patrol.
Gunmen capture 2 National Police patrols, set the policemen free and make off with the vehicles and weapons in al-Darwish Junction, al-Alam neighbourhood, southwest Baghdad.
The US military made an air strike on Sadr City, northeast Baghdad at noon today, Iraqi Police said. No casualties were reported. No comment was available from the US military at the time of publication.
Clashes broke out between gunmen and the Iraqi Army in Bayaa, west Baghdad at around one this afternoon. No casualties were reported.
3 mortar rounds hit al-Muthanna military base in central Baghdad at 3 pm. No casualties were reported.
The US military made an air strike at an armed group during a surveillance trip in the sky of al-Kadhimiyah area at 3 pm today, killing 3 gunmen, injuring 8, Iraqi Police said. No comment was available from the US military at the time of publication.
3 mortar rounds fell near Vice President, Tariq al-Hashimi's residence inside the Green Zone injuring 2 of his security detail.
The US military carried out air strikes on section 8 in Sadr City from 5 pm to 8 pm. 12 people were killed and 60 injured, Iraqi police said. No comment was available from the US military at the time of publication.
4 mortar rounds hit the Green Zone at around 5 pm today. No casualties were reported.
2 mortar rounds fell on a commercial centre near the rail track in Qadisiyah neighbourhood west of central Baghdad injuring one woman.
2 mortar rounds hit the traffic tunnel under the suspension bridge (one of the entrances to the Green Zone) in Karrada at 5.15 pm injuring 3 civilians.
2 mortar rounds fell on the Green Zone at 7.45 pm. No casualties were reported.
Clashes broke out between Mahdi Army members and the Iraqi Army in Washash, central Baghdad this evening. No casualties were reported.
Basra
The death toll resulting from the fighting in Basra has risen to 120 dead and more than 300 wounded, according to medical sources.
Clashes between gunmen and al-Maliki tribe in Qurna city, 100 km to the north of Basra city left 5 dead and 2 wounded from both sides.
An Iraqi military helicopter was shot down by gunmen at 12.30 am. It crashed to the ground behind the military hospital in north Basra. The fighting between Mahdi Army and the security forces in northern Basra continues.
Thi Qar
The toll for clashes between Mahdi Army and security forces in the province since Thursday until Friday evening reached 30 killed and 52 wounded.
Diwaniya
The toll for the clashes between the security forces and the Mahdi Army since Thursday evening to Friday evening was 4 killed and 10 wounded. '
Labels: Iraq
posted by Juan Cole @ 3/29/2008 01:34:00 AM
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21 Comments:
I do not believe this is what the Iraqi were expecting after the toppling of Saddam Hussein
"al-Maliki and his brother-in-law, who heads the emergency forces that have been sent down to Basra from Baghdad"
Certainly is a good thing that coalition troops are in there. Otherwise we might have a civil war on our hands!
We bomb in civilian areas continually from Somalia to Pakistan, and never a moral thought is given to what we are doing.
We must leave Iraq completely and immediately.
The reports you write are invaluable, an seemingly these last days events have startled even you. I cannot believe any of this could be happening were the attacks not sanctioned by America.
Well, so much for Vietnamization. This is starting to look like the biggest military debacle since Thieu invaded Laos. The only question seems to be whether the government can hold on to even half its troops, or whether the majority will end up going over to the Sadrists. The October date set for provincial elections reveals that, once again, decisions are being made based on American domestic politics rather than reality in Iraq, the intention being to give McCain an 11th-hour purple finger moment to run on. But coming only days after Cheney left the country, this operation exposes what a hollow puppet Maliki is, if there remained any doubters. We can only wonder now where he will find his ultimate refuge -- the US or Iran. The answer will probably tell us much about our intentions toward the Persians.
Has there ever in the history of man been a policy more incoherent than this one? We back a government that is essentially a proxy of our regional arch-enemy, Iran. Our Sunni "Awakening" allies, largely composed of the Baathists we removed from power in the first place, hate this government and would love to overthrow it. Our Kurdish allies are composed of two decidedly undemocratic rival mafias, at least one of which is quite friendly to our enemy Iran, and at least one of which is carrying on a low-level war with our ally Turkey. Meanwhile, the most popular political movement in the country shares our stated goal of a democratic, unified Iraq and therefore must be crushed.
Caligula never instituted a policy so self-destructive and ludicrous. Our country is being run by idiots of millenial proportions.
The decision to attack Basra was Bush's. He said in the press conference with Rudd:
"The decision to move Iraqi troops into Basra talks about Prime Minister Maliki's leadership.
You know, one of the early questions I had to the prime minister was, would he be willing to confront criminal elements, whether they be Shia or Sunni? Would he, in representing people who want to live in peace, be willing to use force necessary to bring to justice those who take advantage of a vacuum or those who murdered the innocent?
His answer was "Yes, sir, I will."
Maliki can't move even the tiniest military unit. The US only can do that, but Maliki's verbal support is crucial, in fact it is the aim.
During last summer, the Kurds threatened to unseat Maliki unless he gives them Kirkuk and the Oil. He responded by asking the nationalists, a majority in parliament, to support him. They did that and the Kurds lost.
Now, a major conflict between Sadr and Maliki has ended that support. The theory is that Maliki either succumbs to Kurdish demands or loses a vote of no confidence.
The Sadrists were also expected to boycott parliament, which removes a major obstacle in the way of the oil law. The Sadrists did oblige briefly, but have now backtracked.
The Americans don't really care much about the Kurds, but want the passage of the oil production-sharing law through them. The law gives exclusive rights to the foreign companies, which, in effect, gives the USA control over the Iraqi reserves: about a quarter of the remaining usable oil on the planet.
It seemed like a "cakewalk". But like everything Bush touches, it turned into a fiasco. The Sadrists are now threatening to take over the Green Zone, by a combination of non-stop artillery and rocket attack, followed by a Tehran(1979) style huge civilian sit-in around it.
The Sunni people (not politicians) are aligning themselves with the Sadrists. There have been meetings and negotiations over a period of months anyway. They now see a Sadr-Sunni pact as the only way to rid Iraq from both the Americans and the Iranians.
Are we witnessing the beginning of the end, a "Tet Offensive?"
As has been mentioned by several others, there is little doubt in my mind that this was a cynical and disgusting move by Darth Cheney and Bush to demonstrate that the Iraqis are 'not yet ready' for a US military drawdown. They will claim this move as a 'baby steps' for the Iraqi government, but not yet ready to stand on its own. The revised deadline that Maliki gives for April 8th, the same day that Patraeus goes before Congress, should ring the bells of even the most dim witted.
As for Maliki and Al-Hakim, it is simply voter suppression in the Iraqi south, and nothing more elegant.
While Bush and Cheney will likely fool the moronic corporate press, the intellectually lazy US electorate and the gutless US Congress, Maliki and Al-Hakim are likely to fail miserably.
Could Maliki have launched this offensive in hopes of trapping the US into launching a fullscale offensive on his enemies? Why assume that Maliki is a passive puppet who is incapable of pulling a stunt or two on his own initiative?
I'm also unconvinced by those who argue that all of this was planned by Cheney and is working out just the way he wanted it to. I think the whole Bush administration has reached the "deer in the headlights" stage. They are paralyzed with fear because they have no real options left. They have lost hope of controlling events on the ground.
They have to decide now whether to take up Maliki's cause and try to crush the Sadrists, with no guarantee that this is possible, or let the Sadrists defeat or at least humiliate Maliki, likely leading to the collapse of the Maliki regime and Sadrist control of much of the country.
An aroused and hostile Shiite population has always been the nightmare scenario for the US, and we're one second away from that on the doomsday clock.
This mess is the inevitable consequence of the "incoherence" that Gregg Gordon details above. We are messing around in a complex, multi-party conflict with no "good guys" and no real "pro-American" factions, just factions that are willing to take advantage of US firepower if it suits their short-term ends.
While Bush and Cheney will likely fool the moronic corporate press
I think the trajectory of press coverage of this war has been similar to what we experienced in Vietnam a generation ago. The press initially reflected public support for a war against Communism, a war against an enemy that seemed to menace us, no matter how far away. Hardly anyone questioned the need to fight communism! Eventually, the best reporters on the battlefield and in Washington began to get the story right. Public opinion began to shift--partly because of press coverage and partly because Americans in all walks of life became unwilling to risk their sons in a conflict that seemed endless and pointless, no matter what the press was reporting.
The Iraq war, unlike Vietnam, began all at once in a mood of anti-terrorism hysteria that was widespread. Again, many in the press simply reflected that mood and accepted the administration's rationale. Many did not: Knight Ridder (now McClatchy) reporters were critical from the beginning. But the K-R newspapers in Miami and Philadelphia and San Jose did not succeed in turning their cities into anti-war hotbeds. Nor did many Americans respond to the anti-war editorials in the Los Angeles Times or other corporate media, or to the anti-war speeches of Barack Obama or Al Gore.
Today, it has become evident to most in the press--and to most people in the country--that the invasion of Iraq was a catastrophic mistake. I don't think Bush and Cheney (or McCain) are going to be able to fool too many people from this point on.
A quibble, Dennis.
Its not a "moronic corporate press", but a bought and shaped corporate press. There are all sorts of bright and informed people in the US, but few on the media airwaves or in print. Those who are there are not so much morons as prostitutes, chosen by an ideological ownership.
Perhaps Prof. Cole or someone among the arabic literates that browse here can tell us what the Hakims/ISCI and the Kurd factions are saying publicly?
I would also be curios as to the actual IA troop movements into Basra. The MSM services and their MNFI sources seem to be pretty unclear as to whether the Maliki clan has 30K, or 5,000 (or less) troops to command in Basra. Even with the history of desertion and no-shows, that's an abnormally large circle of confusion.
It looks more and more like Saddam days when he crushed the Shiite uprising in the south.
Anonymous said... "Certainly is a good thing that coalition troops are in there. Otherwise we might have a civil war on our hands!"
I assume you DID mean to extract your tongue from cheek after that?
FWIW, I've linked to this post at my new blogger blog "Razed By Wolves" in combination with a post by Stan Goff, Feral Scholar (and ex-Special Forces) called Good Morning, Vietnam!
The "about" from "Razed": "This blog is intended to be an adjunct to my self-hosted site "My Buffalo River Home", consisting of snippets of news about events and people who make the world around us a dangerous, nasty place to live..."
An excerpt from Goff's estimation of the situation in Iraq:
"...he (al Sadr) commands the ferocious loyalty of two and a half million people and has an 80,000-strong militia concentrated a stone’s throw from the U.S.-protected Green Zone in Baghdad. Baghdad has about 6 million people; New York City has 8 million, just by way of comparison. The population of Sadr City, the “neighborhood” under the leadership of Sadr, is approximately that of Brooklyn.”
In Full
I've also posted the video of the Iraq Town Hall meeting (without any Iraqis, natch!) announced by Informed Comment Global @ 'Razed', but after a thorough review, I believe their wingtip combat boots are made of lead and they really cannot even fathom the depth of the problems the US faces in regard to fallout from this nightmare whether US forces stay OR leave, or anything in between.
You compare it to the invasion of Laos. It reminds me more of Napoleon's invasion of Russia.
The decision to attack Basra was Bush's. He said in the press conference with Rudd: "The decision to move Iraqi troops into Basra talks about Prime Minister Maliki's leadership.
Anonymous of 1414 misunderstands what he quotes, as it seems to me, who elsewhere quoted from the same performance to show that poor M. al-Málikí acted independently, at least as regards the timing of the latest escalation.
On my theory, George XLIII really does suppose the man to possess superb leadership qualities. That's ridiculous, but on the other hand Núrí Kamál seems to think so also.
But God knows best. Happy days.
Cordesman says:
"The current fighting, which the government portrays as a crackdown on criminality, is better seen as a power grab, an effort by Mr. Maliki and the most powerful Shiite political parties to establish their authority over Basra and the parts of Baghdad that have eluded their grasp."
Cordesman is right in statement above, and more.
But he is NOT right to say that Maliki has "dragged" Bush/usa into
anything, it is NOT coincidence
that Cheney was there just before this assault on Sadr started. Cheney prodded Maliki into this,
assured Maliki/SCIRI/DAWA that NOW (before October elections) was the
time to get rid of the only shia nationalist with popular support. Too bad Maliki went for it,
political peace will be more
difficult than ever (not that BushCheney gang cares about peace in Iraq).
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/30/opinion/30cordesman.html?ref=opinion&pagewanted=print
My knowledge of history is very limited but... the US empire's present situation reminds me of that of late 16th Century Spain with its "invincible armada". Spain was in a certain way the only superpower and, despite all the plundering in America and elsewhere, became indebted to, and highly dependent of, private bankers from other areas of Europe.
In my view, the Sadr movement has for a long time been the only major movement presenting a coherent national (or patriotic in US-speak) Iraki position. I believe the main problem for nationalist Irakis remains ending the occupation and it can only be achieved through a common front from all the ethnic and religious groups of the country. And this seems to be what this movement has been doing.
To those who think that this is a Maliki show: it is not possible, for the simple reason that the Iraqi army is fully under US command as part of the Multi-Nation Force in Iraq.
Maliki is not authorized to send the Iraqi Army to Basra, or anywhere, yet Bush and the US military claim that they do not know why Maliki sent the troops! They are protesting too much and unnecessarily, which is also a very useful clue: they did not want to be seen as part of the fiasco, which they expected all along but not at this magnitude.
Hey, Bush was right for once. This is turning out to the defining moment for Iraq.
The only difference being that it is making it clear that the US position is untenable and useless at best. Bush clearly does not understand the situation, still less that the position is lost.
The US is currently supporting the pro-Iran militia while accusing Iran of arming all the other militias. Sadr's biggest appeal is that he is anti-US occupation.
The occupation is prolonging the insurgency, opposition to Bush is the principle driver here, not support for Iran, Al Quaeda or Saddam.
from swimming freestyle:
"So, who did win this week? It's probably fair to say losers don't issue demands and winners don't accept those demands so readily."
http://swimmingfreestyle.typepad.com
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