Posted on 10/20/2006 6:23:44 PM PDT by blam
British troops face return to city they gave back to Iraq
By Oliver Poole Iraq Correspondent
Last Updated: 1:44am BST 21/10/2006
British troops are on stand-by to move into Amara just two months after handing over the southern Iraqi city to local security forces.
The decision was taken after the Shia militia run by the anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr seized control of parts of the city. Street battles between police and his Mahdi Army left 25 people dead.
More than 300 Mahdi Army fighters stormed three main police stations on Friday morning and destroyed them with explosives.
The men, clad in the black uniforms of the militia and armed with Kalashnikovs and rocket-propelled grenades, set up roadblocks throughout the city and were driving around in commandeered police cars, witnesses said.
Nouri al-Maliki, the Iraqi prime minister, sent an emergency security delegation to try and restore order.
Last night it was reported that a temporary truce had been negotiated, with the militiamen agreeing to lift a siege of police headquarters and take down many of their checkpoints. But gunfire could still be heard at nightfall.
A British military officer, speaking on condition of anonymity, said two Iraqi army companies had been sent to Amarah from Basra and that Iraqi soldiers and police were massing to re-establish control over the city.
Six hundred British troops stationed in Basra are on stand-by to give help if requested by the Iraqis.
Amarah, a city of 350,000 people and the capital of Maysan province, was under British jurisdiction until August when the Army pulled out if its nearby base, Camp Abu Naji.
Britain said at the time that the departure was in response to an assessment that local security forces could maintain law and order and that the Army would be better used patrolling areas near the Iran border.
But yesterday's fighting will raise further doubts about the potential disorder that could follow a British withdrawal from other parts of southern Iraq.
The trouble began after the provincial head of police intelligence, Qassim al-Tamimi, a leading member of the rival Shia militia the Badr Brigade, was killed by a roadside bomb earlier this week.
The teenage brother of the local Mahdi army commander was kidnapped in retaliation. The city's police stations were attacked because it was believed he was being held in one.
Sadr supporters and members of the Badr Brigade, which is run by Iraq's largest Shia political party, the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, have competed for control of southern Iraq since the fall of Saddam's regime in April 2003.
Someone please explain to me why al-Sadr continues to draw air? He should have been taken care of two years ago.
Is this what that big mouth British General meant when her returned to the UK and said allied presence in Iraq made things worse? His pulling out certainly did.
Exactly.
This is an example of how loss of Republican support for the war is misunderstood by the media. It isn't that they don't support the effort, they are simply frustrated by allowing real threats to stability like al-Sadr to continue to exist simply because there might be a temporary public relations downside to doing what needs to be done. A related aspect is in the rush to turn things over to Iraqi security forces when they quite obviously still aren't up to the task. Slow down the transition until they are. Yes, it will take longer. Yes, the Democrats will whine and moan. To my mind telling people it will take 5 years instead of two with greatly reduced casualties as opposed to the current situation would be a much easier pill for Americans to swallow.
I believe after this election if the Republicans hold the Senate and the House there will be a lot less problems with Iraq. If the Dims win we can expect a surge of violence.
And the West fails to learn from this lesson. As soon as we withdraw from Iraq it will return to its former bloody, oppressive islamofacist ways. It would be easier to train wild monkies to vote and act civily than it is to bring democracy and civility to Iraq. These people have been in perpetual war since the beginning of recorded history. The only thing they can understand is brutality and an iron fist. Fighting this war with PC restrictions and believing we can change them in a few years is a failed strategy. We need to either send in another 60,000 troops and literally crush these barbarians, or declare victory and get out and let them slaughter each other.
This sounds more and more like the situations that occur in American inner cities. Squeaky wheels get the oil, limited resources spread too thin, result in this cycle. Which means to say, there is now no better reason to keep the small number of British troops in Iraq, anymore so than to deploy the British troops now stationed in Iraq in the slums of the UK to cut down on the UK crime.
No one will remember where the cycle started, and now no one will believe the cycle of violence will ever stop.
At best we'll only save 25% of the Iraqi population from a bloody civil war when we pull out. 20% of the Kurd controlled north, and the 5% who have fled the country since the war.
We're going to have to accept that, and support that beseiged island of Kurdistan in concrete ways for a long time after, or we'll lose that too.
I've had the same thought. Thuggery.
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