Posted on 10/20/2006 5:37:47 AM PDT by Eurotwit
BAGHDAD, Iraq - The Shiite militia run by anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr seized total control of the southern Iraqi city of Amarah on Friday in one of the boldest acts of defiance yet by one of the country's powerful, unofficial armies, witnesses and police said.
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki dispatched an emergency security delegation that included the Minister of State for Security Affairs and top officials from the Interior and Defense ministries, Yassin Majid, the prime minister's media adviser, told The Associated Press.
The Mahdi Army fighters stormed three main police stations Friday morning, planting explosives that flattened the buildings, residents said.
About 800 black-clad militiamen with Kalashnikov rifles and rocket-propelled grenade launchers were patrolling city streets in commandeered police vehicles, eyewitnesses said. Other fighters had set up roadblocks on routes into the city and sound trucks circulated telling residents to stay indoors.
Fighting broke out in Amara on Thursday after the head of police intelligence in the surrounding province, a member of the rival Shiite Badr Brigade militia, was killed by a roadside bomb, prompting his family to kidnap the teenage brother of the local head of the a-Madhi Army.
The Mahdi Army seized several police stations and clamped a curfew on the city in retaliation.
At least 15 people, including five militiamen, one policeman and two bystanders, have been killed in clashes since Friday, Dr. Zamil Shia, director of Amarah's department of health, said by telephone from Amarah.
The events in the city highlight the threat of wider violence between rival Shiite factions, who have entrenched themselves among the majority Shiite population and are blamed for killings of rival Sunnis.
Mahdi Army militiamen have long enjoyed a free rein in Amarah, the provincial capital of the southern province of Maysan. The militiamen often summon local government officials for meetings at their offices, and they roam the city with their weapons, manipulate the local police and set up checkpoints at will.
Since British troops left Amarah in August, residents say the militia has been involved in a series of killings, including slayings of merchants suspected of selling alcohol and women alleged to have engaged in behavior deemed immoral by militiamen.
Yep. He is being propped up by Iran, maybe it would have been easier to cut the head off the snake rather than snipping little peices of the tail that grows back.
Thank you Jimmy Carter, worldwide menace.
We have to go in there with serious determination to win the Sadrites hearts and minds. That is the New Warfare.
Yep, them too.
Rumsfeld, Bush, all of them. As far as I am concerened they are part of the military, along with the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
It wasn't a military decision back when we had that rat bastard corned in Najaf. You can blame our utopian friends over at the State Department for insisting on trying to draw him into the Iraqi political process and thereby letting him go.
Listen to Condoleeza now. The administration has given up on winning anything. W has lost sight of what this war is about.
Kill anyone in black PJ's......time warp.....
Only the beards are new....
It sounds like it is well beyond repair. They are meeting with Sadr, but there will only be a compromise if he wants it.
Time to turn this city to glass....or salt...
If it's Shiite vs. Shiite is it a civil war?
I agree with that. It's time to quit playing the PC war. Get our troops far enough out of the way, and let the bombs take care of the situation.
One or two glass cities, and most of the terrorists would leave. Just like WWII, two of the big boys, and Japan said enough. War is breaking things and killing the bad guys.
It is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay past time. Long overdue!
Couldn't agree more.
Islam is a thug-ocracy. The aquisition of personal and political power by violence and intimidation, cloaked in a veneer of religion. We see the same pattern all over the Middle East. I am reminded more and more of a bunch of wanna-be Al Capones ought to get what's theirs.
What's done in 2003 is done. Bush should have Sadar killed today. If he doesn't, then in my mind he doesn't have a clue about how to win a war.
Stuck on stupid.
That's the Iraq I know.
Our State Department is singularly incapable of understanding and dealing with these people. What we see as diplomacy and compromise, they see as weakness and cowardice. Same goes for the many elements of our military leadership, the ones who mangle the Special Operations concept of "winning hearts and minds", and turn it into the same soft PC mush as the suits at State.
It's all well and good to take the moral high road when nothing's at stake. If you're dealing with Arabs, and you want to win, you need to be able to think of how your actions will appear to them. Not how they will appear to CNN. Our inconsistant, meandering leadership leaves Iraqi thugs with the impression that there's plenty of wiggle room for them to expand their power, and they do so. They're surely not going to adhere to any laws or standards we don't physically hold them to.
Re read my quote above. That is Iraq.
I see that CNN has gone to breaking news on this story. I guess the first pictures came in.
Seems like there is fighting there, milita against militia. Probably Badre versus Mahdi.
Messy situation.
Bush sees his options in Iraq war evaporate
By David E. Sanger and David S. Cloud The New York Times
Published: October 20, 2006
WASHINGTON The acknowledgment by the U.S. Army spokesman in Iraq that the latest plan to secure Baghdad has faltered leaves President George W. Bush with some of the ugliest choices he has yet faced in the war.
He can once again order a re-arrangement of American forces inside the country, as he did in August, when American commanders declared that newly trained Iraqi forces would "clear and hold" neighborhoods with backup support from redeployed American forces. That strategy collapsed within a month, frequently forcing the Americans to take the lead, making them prime targets.
But there is no assurance that another redeployment of those forces will reduce the casualty rate, which has been unusually high in recent weeks, senior military and administration officials say.
The U.S. death toll has increased just before midterm elections, in which even many of Bush's own party have given up arguing that progress is being made or that the killing will soon slow.
Or Bush can reassess the strategy itself, perhaps listening to those advisers - including some members of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group, the advisory commission charged with coming up with new strategies for Iraq - who say that he needs to redefine the "victory" that he again on Thursday declared was his goal.
One official providing advice to the president noted Thursday that while Bush still insists his goal is an Iraq that "can govern itself, sustain itself and defend itself," he has already dropped most references to creating a flourishing democracy in the heart of the Middle East.
Or, he could take the advice of Senator John McCain, the Republican who is expected to run to replace him in two years, who argues in favor of pouring more troops into Iraq, an option one senior administration official said might make sense but could "cause the bottom to fall out" of public support.
But whatever choices he makes - probably not until after the Nov. 7 elections, and perhaps not until the bipartisan group issues its report - they will be forced by a series of events, in Iraq and at home, that now seems largely out of Bush's control, in Iraq and at home.
Every day administration and Pentagon officials fume - always privately, to avoid the ire of the White House - about their frustrations with Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki for not confronting Iraq's Shiite militias, meaning that there is no end to the daily cycle of attack and reprisal.
Bush finds himself increasingly unable to make a convincing argument that, behind the daily toll in American lives, the Maliki government is making measurable progress, or even that the problems in Iraq are subject to a military solution.
It is a vexing quandary that military experts say they doubt that any study group - even the group assembled under former Secretary of State James Baker and former Representative Lee Hamilton of Indiana - can cut its way through.
At the Pentagon, several examinations of the current approach in Iraq are under way, including an effort ordered by General Peter Pace, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He has asked the army and the other services to identify officers who have recently returned from Iraq and to ask them to offer their views to the joint staff about whether adjustments in tactics or strategy are necessary, two military officials said.
"We are not able to project sufficient coalition and Iraqi forces to properly execute the strategy" of clearing, holding and rebuilding Baghdad and other areas of insurgents and hostile militias, said another veteran, retired General Jack Keane, a former army vice chief of staff. "General Pace is doing the right thing by reassessing our entire strategy."
Bush says his resolve to win is unshaken. But a few of his own aides were wondering aloud why Bush, asked to respond to a column by Thomas Friedman in The New York Times that compared the Ramadan attacks in Iraq to the 1968 Tet offensive, said the comparison "could be right."
"There's certainly a stepped-up level of violence, and we're heading into an election," he told George Stephanopoulos of ABC News on Wednesday. "Georgie, my gut tells me that they have all along been trying to inflict enough damage that we would leave."
For now there is no talk of leaving. But there is plenty of talk about pulling back.
"The Iraq situation is not winnable in any real sense of the word 'winnable,'" Richard Haass, the former chief of the policy planning operations in the State Department during Bush's first term, said Thursday. Privately, Pentagon strategists and some administration officials noted that Bush has talked often in recent months of changing his tactics, but not his strategy.
"Tactics are something you can turn on a dime," said Richard Armitage, the former deputy secretary of state, and an army veteran with close ties to the military. "Strategy takes time and that's the question. Do we have time for a new strategy?"
While members of the Iraq Strategy Group are cagey about the recommendations they are drafting, several say that Baker - who is in regular contact with Bush - is seeking to move away from Bush's strategy of withdrawing Americans when the Iraqis are ready to replace them and toward one that sets a schedule.
"Jim's problem is that he wants a way to make clear to Maliki that we're leaving, but without signaling to the Shia and the Sunni that if they bide their time, they can battle it out for Iraq," said one longtime national security expert who recently testified in front of the study group. "How do you do that? Got me."
Then there is the recurring question whether a new strategy requires the exit of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Some Republicans say privately that the combination of a poor showing in next month's elections and the worsening violence could ultimately force Rumsfeld's departure.
Pentagon aides say Rumsfeld is not planning on going anywhere. "He serves at the pleasure of the president and has no intention to step down," said Eric Ruff, the Pentagon press secretary.
WASHINGTON The acknowledgment by the U.S. Army spokesman in Iraq that the latest plan to secure Baghdad has faltered leaves President George W. Bush with some of the ugliest choices he has yet faced in the war.
He can once again order a re-arrangement of American forces inside the country, as he did in August, when American commanders declared that newly trained Iraqi forces would "clear and hold" neighborhoods with backup support from redeployed American forces. That strategy collapsed within a month, frequently forcing the Americans to take the lead, making them prime targets.
But there is no assurance that another redeployment of those forces will reduce the casualty rate, which has been unusually high in recent weeks, senior military and administration officials say.
The U.S. death toll has increased just before midterm elections, in which even many of Bush's own party have given up arguing that progress is being made or that the killing will soon slow.
Or Bush can reassess the strategy itself, perhaps listening to those advisers - including some members of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group, the advisory commission charged with coming up with new strategies for Iraq - who say that he needs to redefine the "victory" that he again on Thursday declared was his goal.
One official providing advice to the president noted Thursday that while Bush still insists his goal is an Iraq that "can govern itself, sustain itself and defend itself," he has already dropped most references to creating a flourishing democracy in the heart of the Middle East.
Or, he could take the advice of Senator John McCain, the Republican who is expected to run to replace him in two years, who argues in favor of pouring more troops into Iraq, an option one senior administration official said might make sense but could "cause the bottom to fall out" of public support.
But whatever choices he makes - probably not until after the Nov. 7 elections, and perhaps not until the bipartisan group issues its report - they will be forced by a series of events, in Iraq and at home, that now seems largely out of Bush's control, in Iraq and at home.
Every day administration and Pentagon officials fume - always privately, to avoid the ire of the White House - about their frustrations with Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki for not confronting Iraq's Shiite militias, meaning that there is no end to the daily cycle of attack and reprisal.
Bush finds himself increasingly unable to make a convincing argument that, behind the daily toll in American lives, the Maliki government is making measurable progress, or even that the problems in Iraq are subject to a military solution.
It is a vexing quandary that military experts say they doubt that any study group - even the group assembled under former Secretary of State James Baker and former Representative Lee Hamilton of Indiana - can cut its way through.
At the Pentagon, several examinations of the current approach in Iraq are under way, including an effort ordered by General Peter Pace, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He has asked the army and the other services to identify officers who have recently returned from Iraq and to ask them to offer their views to the joint staff about whether adjustments in tactics or strategy are necessary, two military officials said.
"We are not able to project sufficient coalition and Iraqi forces to properly execute the strategy" of clearing, holding and rebuilding Baghdad and other areas of insurgents and hostile militias, said another veteran, retired General Jack Keane, a former army vice chief of staff. "General Pace is doing the right thing by reassessing our entire strategy."
Bush says his resolve to win is unshaken. But a few of his own aides were wondering aloud why Bush, asked to respond to a column by Thomas Friedman in The New York Times that compared the Ramadan attacks in Iraq to the 1968 Tet offensive, said the comparison "could be right."
"There's certainly a stepped-up level of violence, and we're heading into an election," he told George Stephanopoulos of ABC News on Wednesday. "Georgie, my gut tells me that they have all along been trying to inflict enough damage that we would leave."
For now there is no talk of leaving. But there is plenty of talk about pulling back.
"The Iraq situation is not winnable in any real sense of the word 'winnable,'" Richard Haass, the former chief of the policy planning operations in the State Department during Bush's first term, said Thursday. Privately, Pentagon strategists and some administration officials noted that Bush has talked often in recent months of changing his tactics, but not his strategy.
"Tactics are something you can turn on a dime," said Richard Armitage, the former deputy secretary of state, and an army veteran with close ties to the military. "Strategy takes time and that's the question. Do we have time for a new strategy?"
While members of the Iraq Strategy Group are cagey about the recommendations they are drafting, several say that Baker - who is in regular contact with Bush - is seeking to move away from Bush's strategy of withdrawing Americans when the Iraqis are ready to replace them and toward one that sets a schedule.
"Jim's problem is that he wants a way to make clear to Maliki that we're leaving, but without signaling to the Shia and the Sunni that if they bide their time, they can battle it out for Iraq," said one longtime national security expert who recently testified in front of the study group. "How do you do that? Got me."
Then there is the recurring question whether a new strategy requires the exit of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Some Republicans say privately that the combination of a poor showing in next month's elections and the worsening violence could ultimately force Rumsfeld's departure.
Pentagon aides say Rumsfeld is not planning on going anywhere. "He serves at the pleasure of the president and has no intention to step down," said Eric Ruff, the Pentagon press secretary.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/10/20/news/policy.php
Hmmm, not good. A militia in open defiance of US policy. We better offer him more aid.
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