Sadr Offensive Shows Failure of Petraeus Strategy
WASHINGTON - The escalation of fighting between Mahdi Army militiamen and their Shiite rivals, which could mark the end of Moqtada al-Sadr’s self-imposed ceasefire, also exposes Gen. David Petraeus’s strategy for controlling Sadr’s forces as a failure.
Petraeus reacted immediately to Sunday’s rocket attacks on the Green Zone by blaming them on Iran. He told the BBC the rockets were “Iranian provided, Iranian-made rockets”, and that they were launched by groups that were funded and trained by the Quds Force of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Petraeus said this was “in complete violation of promises made by President [Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad and other most senior Iranian leaders to their Iraqi counterparts”.
Petraeus statement was clearly intended to divert attention from a development that threatens one of the two main pillars of the administration’s claim of progress in Iraq — the willingness of Sadr to restrain the Mahdi Army, even in the face of systematic raids on its leadership by the U.S. military and its Iraqi allies.
The rocket attacks appear to have been one of several actions by the Mahdi Army to warn the United States and the Iraqi government to halt their systematic raids aimed at driving the Sadrists out of key Shiite centres in the south. They were followed almost immediately by Mahdi Army clashes with rival Shiite militiamen in Basra, Sadr City and Kut and a call for a nationwide general strike to demand the release of Sadrist detainees.
Even more pointed was a strong warning from Sadr aide Abdul-Hadi al-Mohammedawi to the United States as well as to the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI), whose Badr Organisation militiamen, in the uniforms of Iraqi security forces, have targeted the Madhi Army throughout the south. “They don’t seem to realise that the Sadrist trend is like a volcano,” he told worshippers Friday in Kufa. “If it explodes, it will crush their rotten heads.”
The signs that the Madhi Army will no longer remain passive mark a major defeat for the U.S. military command’s strategy aimed at weakening the Mahdi Army.
When he took command in Iraq in early 2007, Petraeus recognised that the U.S. occupation forces could not afford to wage a full-fledged campaign against the Mahdi Army as a whole. Instead it adopted a strategy of dividing the Sadrist movement.
Petraeus and the ground commander in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno, hoped that there were leaders in the Sadrist movement who would be willing to give up further military resistance and accept the U.S. occupation and the existing government.
For months, the command tried to generate a “dialogue” with “moderates” in the Sadrist camp. It issued a series of statements hailing Sadr’s willingness to change the purpose of his movement. Most recently, on Jan. 17, Odierno said, “I believe he is trying to move forward with more of a religious organisation and get away from a militia type-supported organisation.” But he admitted, “That could change.”
Meanwhile, Petraeus targeted selected elements of the Mahdi Army in raids in Sadr City and the Shiite south, portraying its targets as “criminals” and “rogue elements” which had broken away from Sadr and were armed, trained and financed by Iran. Odierno suggested in his Jan. 17 press briefing that such renegade groups were causing “the majority of the violence”.
But the “moderate” Sadrists who would be willing to make a deal with the U.S. never materialised. Last July, a U.S. commander in Baghdad claimed that Sadrist representatives had initiated “indirect” talks with the U.S. military. But in January, Odierno would say only that they had been meeting with “local leaders” in Sadr City, not with representatives of the Sadrist movement.
The Mahdi Army’s blunt warnings of military countermeasures followed months of raids against Sadr’s political-military organisation by both U.S. forces and the Badr Organisation. According to a senior Sadrist parliamentarian, between 2,000 and 2,500 Mahdi Army militiamen had been detained since Sadr declared a ceasefire last August.
The raids have been aimed at weakening the Madhi Army’s political hold on Shiite cities in anticipation of eventual provincial elections.
During 2007 there were signs of strong support for Sadr in Najaf, Basra and Karbala, as Sudarsan Raghavan reported in the Washington Post last December. In Najaf, portraits of Sadr and his father, Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Sadiq Sadr, who was assassinated by Saddam Hussein’s security forces in 1999, had “mushroomed defiantly in the streets”.
Sadr’s image had also been “pervasive” in Karbala, according to Raghavan, until security forces loyal to the ISCI arrested more than 400 of Sadr’s followers in an obvious effort to destroy its organisation in the city.
For months Sadr had refrained from authorising a full-fledged response to such attacks on his forces. But Tuesday an officer at Sadr’s headquarters in Najaf said the Mahdi Army should be prepared to “strike the occupiers” as well as the Badr Organisation.
Revealing the contradictions built into the U.S. position in Iraq, even as it was blaming Iran for the alleged renegade units of the Mahdi Army, the U.S. was using the Badr Organisation, the military arm of the ISCI, to carry out raids against the Mahdi Army. The Badr Organisation and the ISCI had always been and remained the most pro-Iranian political-military forces in Iraq, having been established, trained and funded by the IRGC from Shiite exiles in Iran during the Iran-Iraq war.
It was the ISCI leader Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim who had invited two IRGC officers to be his guests in December 2006, apparently to discuss military assistance to the Badr Organisation. The Iranian officials were seized in the home of home of Hadi al-Ameri, the leader of the Badr Organisation and detained by the U.S. military. The Bush administration continued throughout 2007 to cite those Iranian visitors as evidence of the IRGC’s illicit intervention in Iraq.
But the Badr Organisation had become the indispensable element of the Iraqi government’s security forces, who could be counted on to oppose the Mahdi Army in the south. And in a further ironic twist, it was the leaders of the ISCI and of the Nouri al-Maliki government, which depended on Iranian support, who insisted last summer and fall that the United States should credit Iran with having prevailed on Sadr to agree to a ceasefire. The close collaboration of the U.S. command with these pro-Iranian groups against Sadr appears to be the main reason for the State Department’s endorsement of that argument last December.
The Petraeus assertion that the rocket attacks on the Green Zone were Iranian-inspired strongly implied that Iran is still providing arms to Shiite militias. However, Odierno told a press briefing in mid-January, “We are not sure if they’re still importing [sic] weapons into Iraq.”
That admission came only after many months in which U.S. officers in the border provinces were unable to find any evidence of arms coming across the border from Iran.
Those officers also found no trace of the alleged presence of the IRGC personnel in Iraq. Last November, the French weekly news magazine Le Point quoted Maj. Scott A. Pettigrew, the military intelligence chief in Diyala province on the Iranian border, as saying, “I have never seen any activity or presence of the Quds Force. I see nothing here that resembles a proxy war with Iran.”
Gareth Porter is an historian and national security policy analyst. His latest book, “Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam“, was published in June 2005.
© 2008 Inter Press Service
Betrayus’ hedge has been to lay the blame for insurgent activity in Iraq on Iranian supplied weapons, etc., thereby validating the need for the US to invade Iran and take the focus off of Iraq once again.
When cheney declares that the Iraq War is a “successful endeavor” he’s right, at least in his devious mind. His oil buddies will soon have control of most of Iraq’s oil, something Saddam wouldn’t permit. We’ll probably have military bases there indefinitely - a good launching point to attack Iran and protect Israel. Everything is going just about perfect for him. He lied to the world of course to get to this point but as he would say, “So?”
Does anyone know where Iraq’s oil is going right now? The MSM is told not to report such a thing. I’ve never seen any footage or reports of oil being pumped onto ships at the ports. Are exxon/mobil tankers setting there filling up while no one is looking? If the MSM isn’t reporting this, perhaps this site can try to dig up something.
Everybody in Iraq has their little private army, But the U.S. gets to bomb and raid anybody they want to.
Wow what a country to live in, this is a success story for the Iraqi people getting a secure DEMOCRACY.
The photo says it all. The chief architect of war sits at the elbow of the captured general.
Cheney’s American foreign policy - What corporate America wants, it gets - courtesy of the American taxpayer. Evidently most Americans are in support of the Cheney/Bush illegal war given that there isn’t a sustained outcry. Too busy shopping, I guess.
I don’t know. If they are not fighting over there, maybe they will come fight over here. By “they” I mean Blackwater and Bush/Cheney’s other fascist minions. If they ever finish installing “democracy” in Iraq, I worry they will accelerate their process of installing that same kind of “democracy” over here.
So, the US is paying the Badr organisation to fight the Mahdi Army. The former is the “Iraqi army”. The latter is not. Why is this? Because the US government says so, that’s why. Maybe if the Petraeus Strategy doesn’t meet with success, the general could always ask the teams to swap jerseys.
Vince is right! Petraeus can always say when asked why things have gone so wrong, “The Devil made me do it.” Or, as they seem to have unlimited taxpayers future tax funds they could include Iran’s renegade army with payoffs to be ‘nice.’
Do you think that Badr might have used some of the $30 million+ that we paid him to back off to buy weapons and recruit more fighters? Huh? “American diplomacy” really pays off. Too bad the decision makers don’t have 1/2 a brain between them. But they’re rich and getting richer.
Everyone knows by now that General Tooth Decayus wants one day to be president. The present shape of The Great Bloody Fuckup in Iraq over the last two days must be giving him volcanic fits. Just when he saw himself strolling into the White House as the architect of VICTORY IN MESOPOTAMIA, those inferior beings, those Iraqis, trot out the monkey wrench. There is only one god in the United States - money. Wretches like Bush and Cheney and Decayus think that if you pay off warring factions with American coin of the realm, that you are, in effect, paying them with God Almighty itself. They’ll behave. Did it ever cross the mind of this supposedly well educated general that a bribe is just a bribe? Apparently not. The persons being bribed are just as quick to turn around and stick a shiv in your back as they were to take your blood money in the first place. The fucking idiots at the top of this debacle, this disaster, this catastrophe, know no end to their own stupidity. But it’s okay - just blame the Iranians. So?
It looks like Scott Ridder’s prediction that Iraq would blow this summer is starting early.
the Documentary on the War on PBS yesterday is the History of these War Criminals…
Obama has got all the ammo he needs… Time is on the side of Justice now.
Only 10 more months to go.
Hopefully the Iraqis can get the Americans out of their country without destroying themselves.
After reading an article on this new rise in Iraqi resistance fighting, the attacks by the Mahdi Army, and in an article posted here over the past few days, a piece stating what demands the Mahdi Army is making for the [puppet] Iraqi govt and therefore U.S. to comply with, all wholly sound, rightful, legitimate demands, I started wondering what the real purpose of the U.S. employing former Sunni Iraqi resistance fighters is. It may very likely be to not help Sunni Iraqis, but to instead fuel more sectarian Iraqi fighting; and, maybe, thereby more “elimination”, aka ‘liberation’ in Bush-Cheney jargon, of Iraqis overall.
This new article by Gareth Porter doesn’t cause me to think again of the Sunni Iraqi part of the above, given the focus is wholly on the inter-Shiite Iraqi; but the rest of the above seems fitting enough. The article also makes it clear that the U.S. is definitely working to try to eliminate all resistance from Iraqis.
All of that is obvious; certainly enough anyway.
The following article provides another picture of what I above-said with respect to what the real purpose of the US employing the Sunnis seems to be to me.
“Dispatches: War on Terror
Jon Snow’s Hidden Iraq
Broadcast: Tuesday 18 March 2008 11:05 PM”
http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/dispatches/jon+snows+hidden+iraq/1753147?intcmp=homepage_box3
QUOTE:
Five years after the invasion, Channel 4 news anchor Jon Snow examines the brutal reality of life inside post-invasion Iraq, meeting a variety of its citizens from victims of bomb blasts and war widows to human rights activists and politicians. …
…
Journalist Nir Rosen travels around Baghdad and uncovers a patchwork of ethnically-segregated communities, divided by concrete blast walls. …
Rosen’s footage reveals how the splintering of Iraq has allowed warlords and militias to control individual areas. He meets Abu Abed, the commander of one such militia protecting the Sunni Ameriya district of Baghdad. The Americans have celebrated the exploits of his “Awakening Council” which united them in the fight against Al Qaeda, as emblematic of the success of the surge. But his views on the Shia offer a chilling prospect for the future of Iraq: “Because Iraq is a tribal country the killing is not forgotten even after years. You kill my brother and I know you killed him then I will follow you for a hundred years. You cannot forget. Revenge in the Arab tradition is a very old habit.”
The view from an opposing Shia militia is no more encouraging. Abu Hassan, a committed Sadrist, the party protected by the powerful Shia Mahdi army labels the Awakening Council a “bunch of killers”, arguing they kill for money and their loyalty is dependent on America’s funding.
…
END QUOTE/EXCERPT.
That, btw, is a documentary video, and I got the link from the following youtube page, which provides the video in six parts.
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=3C0C343002372301
‘DIVIDE AND CONQUER’! I guess that’s the way people usually refer to what I opened this post with; now that this common reference comes back to mind.
The article from the other day, or maybe it was an article at another site, instead of the one that was here and I think also from IPS; well, it said that the Mahdi Army is the strongest militia (’army’, for the Sadrists and their supporters) in Basra.
Basra is in the south and is OIL COUNTRY. Just across the border into Iran, east of Basra, is again OIL COUNTRY.
Oh well, relevant or not in terms of what the article this page is for is about, I figured to mentioned the oil matter.
Check out the following frightening explanation of war on Iran being even more likely than if the US chose to apply military means.
“Day of Infamy: The March 20, 2008 US Declaration of War on Iran
by John McGlynn
Global Research, March 24, 2008
japanfocus.org ”
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8429
The original copy of that article has links, and is dated March 22nd.
And that article excellently, while frighteningly explains how the economic war that the U.S. govt has been working on applying would be equally or quasi-equally as destructive for Iran as using USCENTCOM would be. Worldwide ramifications, I am guessing, may also be worse, too.
Strongly well explained and supported is McGlynn’s article.
Nice work Gareth Porter. Good to hear some realistic assessment out of Iraq.
We read that Sadr is fighting again and the Surge has got us nowhere.
Iraq is hell and the surge is one of the seasons of hell– a slight change of scenery, a costume change between acts. The Surge is part of the selling campaign, it’s the 2007-8 model of the long stay in Iraq.
And we stay and stay. Why? The place would revert to chaos if we were to leave. Revert? Chaos is US. We stay because we broke the pottery and now we need to fix it. Fix it? Not in a million years. Asking the US to fix Iraq is like asking Michael Jackson to babysit your children. So we stay, for what? What does the place have of value? Oil. That’s why we stay. Simple question: why don’t we go to Darfur? Simple answer, No oil.
The surge will come and go. Next season there will be a new hope: perhaps Chalabi will return and bring peace. And then the denouement-Chabali summarily killed and revealed as a fraud and on and on, more plots, sub-plots and pipedreams which will last 50 more years when the oil will run out.
The British took over Iraq after the Ottomans were defeated in WWI. They needed oil for their fleet which was then switching over from coal. British Pro-Council Gertrude Bell thought the Shias were not to be trusted so she went with the Sunnis. Churchill’s RAF gassed the Kurds and after that everyone kept pretty much in line.
The country was turned over to CIA station chief Kermit Roosevelt (Teddy’s grandson) in the 50’s and the oil became US corporate property. Saddam nationalized the oil and tossed out the Enrons of the time. Bush tossed out Saddam and now we have chaos.
And now Sadr is rising..
A ghastly tale, I’m sure you’ll agree.
I guess thos Shifty Iranians just…uhhh..FORGOT to remove the ..”Made in Iran” Stickers from the Missiles before they launched them…and too…I tend to hesitate to run outside and wave the flag at passing traffic when the “TIMING” of any really ..shall we say..PERFECT DIVERSION TO US POLICY FAILURE seems to MATERIALIZE…like…ON COMMAND?…maybe the “Black” chapter of the PETREUS plan? Hmmm..? MAybe? you think? nawww…they would NEVER , like..DECEIVE US…no WAY! Not the US MILITARY AND THE SHADOW GOVERNMENT…(Pictured above…Literally..)
Well…you are paying for it..so you must approve of their plan..and their position on the whole squalid affair…after all…if you pick up the check…hup! it’s YOUR DATE!…and become YOUR RESPONSIBLITY…so..DO NOT PAY!
Enjoy the juicy rationalization that is already forming in your mind…Hmmmm..the sweet electric current of a gleaming rational for paying the bill for an illegal war, for torture, murder…lies, firings, deceit…on and on..and on….
Finally..does it bother anyone else that this guy..PETRAEUS..hs a …PERFECT IMPERIALIST NAME…Maybe as in..some kind of bizarre..yale secret society kind of way..”The leader of the modern armies of the new Empire Must Be the reincarnation of a warlord of a past military empire….( spoken in a chanting voice…droning on and on..like me..) bye!
The big mistake the rattlebrained crackpot Bush-idiots continue to make with Iraq and Afghanistan is the never ending hatred and utter disgust they have and continue to generate. Although I love my country, the very fact of the matter is, Iran has every right to aid the rebels of Iraq. If the USA were Iran it would do much more than the relatively minimal support Iran gives across it’s border. The statements, actions and resultant realities of what Bush has done in the region require Iran to play a role. The fact also is both Syria and Iran largely are US allies in spite of all this and could be made very good friends in a heartbeat with a change in our stance that is made clear both publicly and privately to these nations.
What we need to do and what we can do even after having built up so much extreme animosity in the people of the region is to completely turn off all actions which fuel it. Do things like release as many prisoners as possible stop all torture and improve the prisons immensely make them places that do not bread even more hate and disgust. Make a nationwide effort to get all facilities of life restored including electricity and in so doing employ the Iraqi people full time. Let’s get the full employment rate up in Iraq to 99 percent. Put people to work at rebuilding their country and make every action clear that the USA and England intend to play the part of the good guy that fully respects them. Just putting people back to work and giving them hope will change everything within a month’s time. Pump in all kinds of other material aid from nice clothing to television sets and refrigerators. Make it very clear that the USA is making a complete turn-around in it’s rules of engagement and falling back from the forefront of security but requiring vastly improved treatment of all those in custody and treatment of the Iraqis friend and foe with dignity and respect on every level of society. Give back Iraqis control of their own lives and fill them with hope. Make it clear that we are the friend of ALL Iraqis (stop trying to call rebels terrorists) and are there to serve a massive transition phase where we work diligently to see a transformation of Iraq from a waring society where group was pitted against group to a unified peaceful and dignified society where hope is fully restored. It is the US and England that created the infighting amongst Iraqis we can stop it with aggressive programs that are designed to reunify Iraq.
It is time to start immediately to use the best minds to restore a sense of ownership of the country by the Iraqi people a sense of control a sense of dignity and freedom and hope. This may cause a boost in bombings but over the longer run it will lead to a lasting stability that cannot be achieved by the gross mistreatment that has been going on. Declare this to be a new day in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Nothing here about Nouri al-Maliki’s demand that all Shiite militias turn in their weapons within 72 hours. Brave, but I hope he is not suprised when not even a pop gun appears.
Oil, Spoil ladies and gents!
Do you seriously believe that oil matters, or the money that can be made from oil is important? Not that Americans will ever see it coming from either Iraq or Iran? In the heart and soul or every bitter arab patriot burns only one deep concern: How to aquire a nuclear weapon and how to detonate it in New York City! So you may rail here and there about oil and money to be made from oil, but the angry want only revenge for their insults, and with the one weapon that can make vapour of concrete. If these bad guys of your own creation can ever get their doomsday weapon, and ever unleash it on Wall Street it will vapourise not only Manhatten, but all the people who run the system and about 100 years worth of economic progress, and throw the world economy into something like the present state of Iraq! It will also kill millions of unrelated innocents, but so what? Americans have been there and done that! And don’t care! Likewise the rest of the world will buy newspapers and gasp and say “wow! that was scary” and be impressed and secretly happy that some kind of leveling or justice was finally real.
Sounds crazy but its likely because “God on high” might allow it! Good luck guys! Those who live by the sword die by it according to scripture! and plenty of the baddies now desire something that they may eventually be able to actually do! IMPORT that! Real people really want to do this so 9/11 was like a kiddie training run for what the baddies have planned next! You want ghastly, wait till you have Hiroshima on the Hudson River! And then say! Sheez! this is getting like INTERESTING NOW! We kicked their arse, now, hey, they get to kick ours? Americans have always apeculated about how it feels to be vapourised, since they normally inflict that on brown skinned sons of bitches elsewhere. When it comes home and fries your economic heart and soul will you then cry “unfair’ or “terror” when you finally get a proper dose of your own medicine! War on terror? What transparent bullshit! The reckoning will happen with 100% certainty. The only question is when according to the technological capacity. When the bad guys finally get their bomb it wont be so hard to deliver it into the heart of the world economy open for “free trade”.
American warmongering also makes it pretty easy for the Chinese or Japanese to sail a freighter into NY harbour and give us a new BIG BANG, because a big bomb will destroy all the evidence, and we can blame angry arabs for it, but actually anyone could do it. ANYONE! What the hell will the US military or the CIA be able to do about it, once its happened? Nuke Iraq? Nuke Shanghai? Nuke Paris? NOPE! a sweet nothing! that is what it means to be universally despised! You won’t even know where it comes from when it comes! ah “some bad guys are doing bad things to us! Like hey? Could it be because you chain gunned the wrong persons brother a few thousand times over! Sadr Smadr, OIL. Broil! The stakes of this game are nothing so trivial! Blood has been shed in rivers and the bereaved are screaming for bloody revenge! Sooner or later they will get it! Move to the mountains and commune with what’s left of nature because human fraticide hasn’t manifest its most extreme scenarios yet. But it will!
Tantrum
Mr. Porter’s report is a perfect and timely follow-on to the PBS/Frontline program, “Bush’s War” which aired over the past two evenings.
Frontline summarized widely known events from the planning of the war up to the “surge”, drawing on extensive (and chilling) commentary from key insiders including Richard Armitage, David Kay and Paul Bremmer. Despite the 4-1/2 hour treatment, the program was still restricted to dealing with only the most outrageous elements of this debacle and the characters who concocted it.
Now, Mr. Porter’s report confirms that after five years, the U.S. government’s learning curve continues dead flat; same old bowl of blood, different spoon.
Not since the corruption and decline of Rome has western civilization recorded such a pathological combination of arrogance, ignorance and incompetence.
Responses?
Rumsfeld: “Stuff happens!”
Cheney: “So?”
Bush: “Bring ‘em on!”
Bad people, doing bad things, very,very badly.
With respect to people posting on the so-called Iranian supply of weapons to Iraqi resistance, and the hatred the U.S., Bush-Cheney cabal, generates against the U.S., SEE THE SECOND OR even both articles linked in my above post. Of the two, the second one is the presently urgent article to read; and I do mean URGENTLY.
As for the so-called Iranian IRGC supplying weapons to Iraqi resistance we can quickly realise two things, and this is only based on the (not even) hypothesis that Iran has been doing this:
*) It is not to the Sunni Iraqi resistance; and,
*) It also is not to the Sadrists, for they are not pro-Iranian govt, etc., but true, ancestrally authentic Iraqis; while the Badr and ISCI have, for head, Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who is originally Iranian, not Iraqi.
But like the article says, there has been NO proof that Iran has been doing this at all.
I hope the Sadrists win, for the former Sunni Iraqi resistance fighters now on U.S. payroll are BAD towards Shiite and Sunni Iraqis, both. They’re headed by not former Baathists, but, and from what I’ve read, by tribal leaders, many of whom were considerably or very anti-Baathist.
Of all of the Iraqi leadership people in Iraq, Moqtada al-Sadr strikes me as surely being the sanest; and it’s not a new perspective of mine, for it has been for several years already. He had me wondering about this, now and then, but given that the present demands that the Mahdi Army are clearly making are wholly sound, my prior view of al-Sadr has been restored.
I don’t know how they could win, but if any Iraqi group does, then I hope it is them. He and his army constitute the surely best hope for Iraqis.
Lastly, and based on what I’ve read for reason, the Mahdi Army merits to be referred to as ‘army’; not ‘militia’, etc. They lack air-defence weapons or systems, and tanks, say, but they’re still a ground-force ‘army’.
I am totally on their side, with their demands and resistance, wholly; as long as they don’t target innocent Iraqis who aren’t Shiite. If they provide that humanity too, then I’m [fully] on their side.
2,000 to 2,500 detained since last August! Hell! Bush-Cheney cabala opened the Gates of Hell over Iraq. Stairway to Hell, they are on.
There is something else to this ceasefire that Moqtada al Sadr called. In short, he used it to purge his own forces of rivals. Those who continued to fight (those who disobeyed) got smacked down by the Americans and their Iraq-Namese stooges. Those who obeyed were trustworthy. He is still playing games with the government asking for talks, but al-Maliki made the one move al-Sadr needed — a 72 hour surrender deadline. Now, the Green Zone government either pounds Basra and the parts of Baghdad that answers to al-Sadr, or it is clear that the Mahdi army is calling the shots.
My view as of August 2007 is here:
http://kensingtonreview.com/2007C/0831/MahdiPurge.htm
This is so like a Scooby Doo episode. I can hear Petraeus saying “And it would of worked too if it wasn’t for you meddling Iranians!”
Well. It’s a great, big, ole failure. But then again-anything associated with the bush White House is a failure, isn’t it?
Besides the election in Nov, the other obvious reason for the surge was to get as much of a defensive perimeter around the Green Zone as possible before the likely mass helicopter evacuation of the military from the rooftops.
Hopefully the Iraqis can get the Americans out of their country without destroying America. Hopefully…
HILLA, Iraq (Reuters) - Iraqi security sources said many civilians were killed (29) or wounded (39) by a U.S. air strike on the town of Hilla south of Baghdad on Wednesday.
And they call Sadr Offensive…
“Petraeus and the ground commander in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno, hoped that there were leaders in the Sadrist movement who would be willing to give up further military resistance and accept the U.S. occupation and the existing government.”
Once again, we see that hope is not a foreign policy. People anywhere on earth do not like to be occupied by a military force. Especially one that rousts them out of bed in the middle of the night, binds their hands, and puts a bag over their heads. Cheney “hoped” that they would like this, it turns out that they apparently don’t.
Tantrum has one:
Tantrum March 26th, 2008 12:57 pm
“Oil, Spoil ladies and gents!
Do you seriously believe that oil matters, or the money that can be made from oil is important? Not that Americans will ever see it coming from either Iraq or Iran? In the heart and soul or every bitter arab patriot burns only one deep concern: How to aquire a nuclear weapon and how to detonate it in New York City! ”
I would note that oil matters , but perhaps not to the Islamofascists, who, we must remember, number only a tiny percentage of the total number of followers of Islam (1.4 billion). I would think that the main concern of fundamentalists everywhere, not just in the Middle East, lies within their own nation and the thrust is in making that nation completely subservient to their own vision of religion.
If our troops were not in the nation the fundamentalist would focus upon overthrowing their own government to install a Taliban of their own. If we hadnt invaded Iraq Sadaam Hussein would still be a major roadblock to any such movement there. But we did and he aint.
There is no way around the fact that, sooner or later we will leave both Afghanistan and Iraq, spending trillions to make billions in oil soon becomes counter productive as hell. Let us hope that the Legislature grows a spine and refuses Bush permission to invade or attack Iran in any form.
Gareth Porter’s other fine journalism can be read at www.ipsnews.net.
This week’s debacle was, I believe, carried out at the behest of Dick Cheney, that Man of Peace. It gives him, Petraeus, Lieberman et al. plenty of so-called “evidence” to spread through the media about Iran. The hope being that soon there will be enough mistrust and hatred to “justify” our or Israel’s invasion.
The week also “justifies” an administration demand-to-come that our forces must not abandon Iraq now. To do so might actually allow Iraq to become a sovereign nation that would refuse to sign agreements giving control of all new oil drilling for 20-25 years to the US and British companies chosen by Cheney’s Energy Task Force in 2001.
IMPEACHMENT MAY BE THE ONLY ANSWER.
Sadr is fighting the “Iranians” (Badr) who are allied with the US. The sunnis are allied with the US to fight Sadr and AlQaida. Sadr cannot fight against the Sunnis and the Iranians and the US. Sadr must force the US to leave to have a chance of success. Therefore, Sadr must attack the Americans to try to get them out. The Sunnis will keep their powder dry hoping the Shiites go against each other but they hate Mahdi so much they might not resist the temptation to attack them too. They also don’t like Badr, but they seem to hate Mahdi more. The sunnis will hope that the Shiites weaken each other enough for them to be able to attack. Then the US will be allied with both warring factions. Who will they support? The Iranians or the Sunnis? The sunnis, of course, they are backed by the Saudis. So in the end, the US will be allied with the followers of Sadaaam against the Iranians. Like Korea, we are heading rapidly toward the starting line. Cute huh?
Tantrum this mass-murder exercise in idiocy the you seem to advocate with your tirade is no better than what came from the Neocon slime of the Bush administration. One of the many good things the wonderful interconnecting internet has given us is the ability to say the USA and UK are not monolithic entities. In fact most people in these countries are pro-Arab and feel as horrible for what Bush has done as if the people of Iraq are their own brothers and sisters. And don’t forget the people of the USA and Britain are also very much victims of what Bush has done. Bush and his cohorts have stolen vast sums from our treasuries and left our economies on the brink of disaster. We have also lost thousands of innocent souls including the WTC which seems most likely to have been brought down by Bush and the neocons as part of their effort to attempt to justify all the misdeeds such as the criminal mass-murdering of Iraqis.
Yes Bush has assaulted the entire USA really the world. We are all largely victims. A few years ago the heads of fortune 500 companies all came together in New York city to proclaim they hated the war on Iraq and they had no support for it at all. This was a criminal action of Bush and the ultra fascist neocons. It was literally a war on the world not just Iraq and very much included a war on the USA by stealing trillions of dollars a vast reduction of civil and Constitutional rights and many other direct damages against us.
The Internet allows me and others like the fortune 500 executives to housewives to many others to proclaim we hate Bush and what he did just as much as Iraqis. Don’t blame the USA as a whole. The lying defense industrial complex media may try to say that Americans support this filth but they are overwhelmingly against it. Even though most conservative Republicans are horrified by the killings and torture.
Supporting any kind of a nuclear attack or any other attack is not a solution it is just a continuation of the madness. We must all realize that this is not the way to live. We are each others brothers lets put a stop to the madness not add more.
The Petraeus assertion that the rocket attacks on the Green Zone were Iranian-inspired strongly implied that Iran is still providing arms to Shiite militias.
Mr. Porter and Inter Press Service are serving as the Pentagon’s propaganda arm. Why is Common Dreams posting articles like this?
The administrations response shows again that they will always tell the worst lies that support their most murderous destructive hegemonic desires, and hide their failings. Costly failure is a certainty. Continued denial is a certainty. So the US imperial overlords of the Green Zone and associated fortresses will eventually have to be driven out in ignominy and ridicule, amidst rivers of blood. None of the poor social reject grunts who make up their army will have deserved it that much. What will be the anger of the people of the US towards their leaders when this fully predictable event happens?
Bring our troops out of Iraq…..NOW
Stay and continue losing lives and wasting a Billion Dollars each day.
Mad George Bush and his Learning Disabled Generals are in a series of “death traps”. .They are following a losing Plan.
Bush and his Generals are clueless !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
There may be a slim opening, a closing window, but it will be shut in 90 days. …………this is so sad.
WW3 will begin in the Middle East. And it will begin soon! All the condition are right, all the pieces are in place.
The shooting today of an Egyptian civilian in the Suez Canal by an American security detail (see my blog) moves us a step closer!
Madmen in America and Israel are running out world. Time is running out!
www.dangerouscreation.com
Hmmm, read all the way down to here without seeing anyone pointing out what’s really going on.
First key thing to realize. This was not started by Sadr. Despite all the focus on him in this article, he didn’t start this. It was started by the Iraqi Prime Minister who launched this campaign against the Sadr forces in Basra. It was such an important operation that he left the safety of his US guards in the Green Zone to go to Basra to be close to the action.
Remember all those stories a couple of weeks ago and Adm. Fallon’s resignation? The ones that hinted at that being one of the last things to be done before starting a war with Iran? Notice then both how this action is happening on the orders of the Iraqi PM, which undoubtably means its happening on the orders of Bush and his minions. The support US forces are giving in areas like air power also confirms this is happening with Washington’s blessing. And, I don’t know if its still true, but a couple of years ago reports on the Iraqi army mentioned that the organization had no ability to provide logistics. Then, the Iraqi army was entirely dependent on the US military for logistics … ie, supplies. Thus, if that was still true, this could not happen at all without US military approval and support.
So, to me it seems clear that we are seeing the beginning of the war with Iran. This is the opening act. Its the ‘causus belli’, the excuse for war. When you read the corporate media, they are full of ‘blame Iran’ messages about this. Thus, that seems to be the plan. Start a major fight in Iraq and blame Iran for it.
Soon, we’ll see the Presidential address where he tells the American people that because of this he’s had to launch military actions against Iran. (and the US Senate including Hillary and Obama and McCain will all endorse this action).
Big Bad Bob, I believe he called him a “little chickenshit” because
he sucked up to GW so close that a sharp left turn would have
broken his nose. How many Generals did George go through before he
found one that would agree with him?
It is impossible to win if one doesn’t pick a side. I was wondering how Bush and Petraeus were going to translate their goals to operational missions. It looks like we have finally picked a side in the fight - the al-Maliki Shia’s. It remains to be seen how much we back “our man Maliki.” Does this mean we are going to stop arming the Sunni groups, or the Kurds?
We have been (or still are) for the Shias and against the Shias, for the Sunnis and against the Sunnis, for the Kurds and against the Kurds - demonstrating a schizophrenic strategy in Iraq.
It is time we got out of Iraq. By withdrawing we *may* just get what we want - a stable government that hates al-Qaeda.
Why is anyone surprised at what happens under a COWARD as Commander in chief?
Like everything else for the bush White House-this too is a complete failure. In fact, it’s one failure after another.
Conservative politics-conservative ideology just doesn’t work. It never has and it’s never going to. It’s nothing but a long, long, list of failures-one after another.
Conservative ideology has out-lived its usefulness. It, literally, has nothing of value to offer. Time to let go of the microphone; time to leave the stage.
Yes greatbear,
That and an apology would do wonders in getting the world in a mood to get on with repairing the damage (a long time commitment) and working out peaceful solutions so that we can begin to fix the USA as well.
That appears to be this Administration and their cronies standard excuse…Iran! They don’t blame it on their ineptness or even circumstances. It’s all Iran’s fault! And all the sheepl (Bushie’s) will swallow it. Common sense told most of us to wait a while to see if the Surge was actually working. Not to entirely believe what General Petraeus was saying because he was a hand picked Bush ‘yes’ man. Not only because Bush is a pathological liar and anything that comes out of his Administration is instantly suspect! But, because when they (Bush) went into Iraq uninvited they uncorked the bottle and let the evil gene out! It’s part of the regions history! Every region seems to have it’s ‘warlord’ that rules everything with an iron fist. It’s religious cleric who wants to rule the whole country. And it was obvious religious differences (Shiite and Sunni) was going to play even a bigger part in the conflict! Only Bush was to ignorant to see it. Even the most ignorant of us American’s knew it was going to be a long drawn out disaster! That no matter how long we stayed we couldn’t win!
Cheney is teaching Petraeus how to shoot.
Agreed, greatbear, except for one thing. The current administration and its loopy adherents are not conservative. They are batshit nutjob rightwing radicals.
I’m a born, bred, and raised far leftwing progressive liberal, but even I can see that true conservatism has its merits. I don’t agree with the principles, but I do believe real conservatives are principled. The rightwing powers-that-be in government, religion and large corporations are not “small government and fiscally responsible” adults. They are imperialistic junior high school bullies with a self-serving agenda. This administration has the largest bureacracy of any in history (from what I’ve read), has handed over our economic security to foreign interests with their borrow and spend policies, and has trampled on the constitutional rights and freedoms of Americans - contrary to all traditional American values, conservative or liberal.
There’s nothing conservative about them.
I was wondering…is there a hedge fund yet available where you can bet on the next sovereign nation we will invade? I’ve narrowed it down to Iran,Syria,Lebanon,Pakistan, or Venezuela. I’m just trying to hedge my bets. Nothing available in Vegas yet. BTW, there is no difference between right/left, lib/conserv. It’s all ruled from common ground. Bush and his adm. are war criminals and should be tried as such. The left? (dems) were swept into congress w/ a mandate to stop the fascist machine. Has done nothing. Should tell you this is a one horse race.
COMarc
Thanks for pointing out that al-Sadr is the one being attacked. I have been too close to this issue, and rather assumed it was obvious — lesson learned about assuming.
Robertsgt40
The British bookies are pretty accommodating about a straight foward bet on this. Check Ladbroke’s or William Hill on the internet.
COMarc
Thanks for pointing out that al-Sadr is the one being attacked. I have been too close to this issue, and rather assumed it was obvious — lesson learned about assuming.
Robertsgt40
The British bookies are pretty accommodating about a straight forward bet on this. Check Ladbroke’s or William Hill on the internet.
I just caught the last few minutes of bush’s speech at an Air Force museum and, as usual, it was stupifyingly embarrassing. He said the surge is working, we are winning in Iraq, Iran would be dangerous with “nucular” weapons, so on and so forth, blah, blah, blah - the same old pack of distortions and lies. Then he walks off the stage with that shit-eating smirk, never to answer a question. Wouldn’t matter anyway, all questions from his invited choir would never be anything more than - “Sir, do you think we will win in Iraq? Should we let Iran have weapons of mass destruction that they will use against us and Israel?…
Lee Ann said:
“I’m a born, bred, and raised far leftwing progressive liberal, but even I can see that true conservatism has its merits.”
But they hate you and want to kill you.
Petraeus either doesn’t know what he’s doing, or he is deliberately not trying to counter the insurgency. It has been reported that he and Mattis did not write the latest Counter Insurgency Manual, and they may not have even read it. It is clear that US troops fall into 2 groups: a very small number with the training and attitude to improve the situation, and a much larger group who only know how to make the situation worse. The former cannot even counter the effects of the latter, let alone provide the staff levels required to effectively improve the situation.
Tantrum: Yes, although we do not espouse violence we can see it coming a long way off. But we have violated the rights of all other species for many centuries and may have to reduce our numbers in our time-honored way……………..
Any chance for a sudden change of heart? It is obvious that most folks believe in the triumph of the Good….where is the messiah when we need him…her?
and Yes CoMarc thank you for the reminder. This is potentially the beginning of the end: the Iranian adventure which will finally end up starting WW3, killing the Beast in Washington and bringing us all to our senses….Yes??? Optimism just won’t die. In the meantime…
Don’t Forget That We US CITIZENS Could (If We
Wished) Stop the Whole Madness By Simply Agreeing to Not Go To Work For A Few Days….But then simple solutions are just too obvious to be real right? What a long strange trip it’s been. See you in the streets.
“Defense Intelligence Agency History Confuses Iraq and Iran”
Check it out at: http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/
Thanks to estebandido for bringing up a very peaceful way in which we Americans can have a huge impact on what ‘our’ government is doing.
A 3 day walkout would send a definite message.
You could also write your congressperson and suggest you are about to stop paying taxes too because you don’t want your money funding this snafu