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Note: The following text is a quote:

http://www.defenselink.mil/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=49380

Iraqi Prime Minister Deserves Credit, Pentagon Spokesman Says

By Jim Garamone
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, March 26, 2008 – Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki should be commended for taking the initiative to go after extremists and criminals in Basra, Pentagon Press Secretary Geoff Morrell said today.

The Iraqi government launched an operation last week to go after militias and criminal elements that do not follow the rule of law in the southern oil city.

“Citizens down there have been living in a city of chaos and corruption for some time, and they and the prime minister clearly have had enough of it,” Morrell said.

News reports out of Basra said there has been fighting between the Iraqi army and illegal militias and criminal elements. Maliki ordered five extra battalions to the city, bumping the force up to 15,000.

“They are conducting aggressive military operations … trying to rid the city of militias, thugs, smugglers that have been plaguing it for months now,” Morrell said. “But I think it’s very noteworthy that the prime minister, that the government, for that matter, is ready, willing and now able to take the fight to the extremists and to the criminals down there. They were not of this capacity some months ago.”

The Iraqi security forces could not deploy a force like this in the past, Morrell said. “Part of the point of the surge was to give them the time (and) the training to increase their capability, and they are now displaying it,” he said.

The coalition has provided some air support in the operation, but no ground elements, the press secretary said. “This is an Iraqi-led operation, and what’s more than that, it is a Shiia-dominated government going after Shiia extremists down there, and that is significant,” he said.

The Iraqi military has made enough progress that the government now feels confident in going after Shiite extremists in a part of the country where it previously had not exerted great influence.

The problems in Basra have been festering, Morrell said.

“I think the city has always been dealing with a level of criminality and corruption that no one has been comfortable with,” he said. “It has not been to a point such that it became a security threat that would undermine the central government.”

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Note: The following text is a quote:

http://www.defenselink.mil/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=49378

New Operations in Basra, Baghdad Take Aim at ‘Lawlessness’

By John J. Kruzel
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, March 26, 2008 – Some 2,000 Iraqi security force members yesterday entered Basra, Iraq, on a mission to crack down on “lawlessness.” Meanwhile, Iraqi and coalition forces have renewed similar efforts in the Iraqi capital.

In Basra, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and his national security ministers decided on and directed the Iraqi-led operation, while coalition forces have only “limited involvement,” Army Maj. Gen. Kevin Bergner, a Multinational Force Iraq spokesman, said today.

“The lawlessness is going on under religious or political cover, along with the smuggling of oil, weapons and drugs,” said Bergner, quoting a statement by Maliki. “These outlaws found support from inside government institutions, either willingly or by coercion, turning Basra into a place where citizens struggle to feel secure for their lives and property.”

Now in the second day of a “difficult and challenging” mission in Basra, the roughly two-brigade-sized force comprising Iraqi emergency response units, special operations forces, helicopter operators and conventional forces is seeing some success, Bergner told reporters.

“Initial reports are that they are making progress and they have had some tough encounters in their initial day or so of operations,” Bergner said during a news conference in the Iraqi capital.

The general emphasized the Basra operation is not aimed at operatives of Jaysh al-Mahdi, the militia loyal to Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, who pledged in August to suspend offensive operations against coalition forces and citizens and recently extended that pledge. Neither is it a proxy war between the United States and Iran, he said. Both have been reported in news media as possible motives for the new operations.

“It is the government of Iraq taking responsible action necessary to deal with criminals on the streets with weapons,” Bergner said.

He added that the Basra mission reflects the growing ability of Iraqi security forces, noting that coalition involvement is limited to transition team members embedded with Iraqis, various Iraqi-coalition liaison elements and some air assets.

In Baghdad, coalition and Iraqi security forces continue to work to quell criminal behavior, including Iranian-backed “special groups” and other elements perpetrating “indiscriminate violence.” Bergner noted that forces, however, are careful to exercise operational restraint.

“We have not, for example, indiscriminately returned fire on the locations from which the rockets have been launched,” he said. “We have not undertaken large-scale operations against neighborhoods, just because that is where the indirect fire originated from.”

Likewise, Bergner said, combined forces will continue to “show restraint” to Jaysh al-Mahdi members who uphold Sadr’s ceasefire pledge.

Bergner underscored that operations in the Iraqi capital, as in Basra, are not aimed at affiliates of particular religious or political groups.

“The suggestion that coalition forces and Iraqi security forces are targeting individuals because of their political affiliation is simply incorrect,” he said. “We are targeting criminals regardless of their political or other affiliation. People who break the law are arrested and subject to the rule of law.”