Ignore this, little one:
al-Maliki said he was "surprised to see that party emerge with all the weapons available to it and strike at everything — institutions, people, departments, police stations and the army."
al-Maliki's comments appeared to reinforce suspicions that his government failed to foresee the backlash, including a sharp upsurge in violence
a group of police in the Mahdi Army's Baghdad stronghold of Sadr City abandoned their posts and handed over their weapons to al-Sadr's local office.
al-Maliki acknowledged he may have miscalculated by failing to foresee
the minister either is circumscribed in his powers to remove Sadr, or unsure that he has that ability at all.
The U.S. military had no immediate comment
The above quote that I gave you is from a spokeman for our military.
The fact that you choose to ignore it speaks for itself.
Why don't you use more childish vitrol on those who dare to disagree with you and ignore that?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1993721/posts
Maliki:surprised to see that party emerge with all the weapons available to it and strike at everything — institutions, people, departments, police stations and the army.
It doesn't logically follow from your above Maliki quote, that Maliki is limited in his powers to defeat the Mahdi Army, as you state in post #77.
To the contrary, from your link, Maliki calls the fight for control of Basra "a decisive and final battle".
Given all the U.S., British, allied and Iraqi blood that has been spilled to get to this point, I would NOT be so quick to claim that we will lose this showdown.