Iraq: Sadr's Brief Uprising Bloodied Maliki's Nose (and Bush's)
By Robert Dreyfuss, The Nation. Posted April 1, 2008.
As the smoke clears over new rubble in Iraq's second city, the big winners are the forces of rebel cleric Muqtada al-Sadr
At the start of the military offensive launched last week into Basra by U.S. -trained Iraqi army forces, President Bush called the action by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki "a bold decision." He added: "I would say this is a defining moment in the history of a free Iraq."
That's true -- but not in the way the President meant it. As the smoke clears over new rubble in Iraq's second city, at the heart of Iraq's oil region, it's apparent that the big winner of the Six-Day War in Basra are the forces of rebel cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, whose Mahdi Army faced down the Iraqi armed forces not only in Basra, but in Baghdad, as well as in Kut, Amarah, Nasiriyah, and Diwaniya, capitals of four key southern provinces. That leaves Sadr, an anti-American rabble rouser and nationalist who demands an end to the U.S. occupation of Iraq, and who has grown increasingly close to Iran of late, in a far stronger position that he was a week ago. In Basra, he's the boss. An Iraqi reporter for the New York Times, who managed to get into Basra during the fighting, concluded that the thousands of Mahdi Army militiamen that control most of the city remained in charge. "There was nowhere the Mahdi either did not control or could not strike at will," he wrote.
The other big winner in the latest round of Shiite-vs.-Shiite civil war is Iran. For the past five years, Iran has built up enormous political, economic and military clout in Iraq, right under the noses of 170,000 surge-inflated U.S. occupying forces. (For details, see my March 10 Nation article, "Is Iran Winning the Iraq War?") Iran has strong ties to Iraq's ruling Shiite alliance, which is dominated by the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, whose militia, the Badr Corps, was armed, trained, financed and commanded by Iranians during two decades in exile in Iran. Since then, hedging its bets, Iran built a close relationship to Sadr's Mahdi Army as well, and Sadr himself has spent most of the time since the start of the U.S. surge last January in Iran*. In addition, Iran has armed and trained a loose collection of fighters that U.S. military commanders call "Special Groups," paramilitary fighters who've kept up a steady drumbeat of attacks on American troops. Thus, it was no surprise when Hadi al-Ameri, the commander of the Badr Corps and a leading member of ISCI, traveled over the weekend to Iran's religious capital of Qom to negotiate the truce with Sadr that resulted in a shaky ceasefire in Basra.
That Sadr emerged victorious, and that Iran succeeded in brokering the deal that ended the fighting, is a double defeat for the United States. It is also a catastrophe for Maliki, and there is already speculation that his government could collapse. An ill-timed offensive, poorly prepared and poorly executed, resulted in an embarrassing defeat for Maliki.
Why was the offensive launched in the first place? By all accounts, Maliki, his faction of the ruling Islamic Dawa party, and ISCI intended to crush Sadr in Basra for reasons both political and strategic. Political, because Sadr's movement is positioned to register a massive win at the polls in Basra and throughout southern Iraq in provincial elections scheduled for October, an electoral defeat that would portend the end of the Dawa-ISCI regime. Strategic, because Basra is the economic engine of all of Iraq. The city controls Iraq's South Oil Company, which pumps and exports the vast majority of Iraq's oil -- and for years Basra has been under the control of militias loyal to Sadr and to a Sadrist splinter party, the Fadhila (Virtue) party. By controlling the Oil Protection Force, a quasi-military force, and through its own militia, Fadhila is an important player in Basra, too, and Basra's governor is a Fadhilist. Though Fadhila has had its own clashes with Sadr's Mahdi Army, Fadhila kept its powder dry in the recent fighting, and there is no doubt that Fadhila is a bitter opponent of the Dawa-ISCI alliance. Last year, Maliki tried to oust the governor of Basra, Mohammed al-Waeli, who defied Maliki and refused to step down.
Maliki, miscalculating badly, flew to Basra last week from Baghdad to personally oversee the assault on Sadr's forces. In so doing, he staked his prestige on the offensive. If indeed it has failed, Maliki has lost face. That the ceasefire ending the fighting was worked out in Qom, Iran, and mediated by Tehran, is doubly embarrassing for him.
But it's far worse for the United States. President Bush strongly backed Maliki since the Battle of Basra started. According to Steve Hadley, the president's national security adviser, the decision to act in Basra was taken jointly between Washington and Baghdad. And U.S. air power and even some ground units supported the floundering Iraqi forces, whose weakness and incompetence were revealed for all to see. After five years of massive U.S. training and equipment, the Iraqi armed forces weren't even able to take control of Iraq's second-largest city.
Adding to Bush's utter humiliation, the Iranian-negotiated truce was mediated by the commander of the so-called Quds Force of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps, Brigadier General Qassem Suleimani, who brought Sadr's representatives together with Hadi al-Ameri, the Badr Corps commander and the leading aide to Abdel-Aziz al-Hakim, the ISCI leader. The Quds Force, you will recall, was only last year designated as a "terrorist" entity by the U.S. government. So President Bush's "defining moment" is this: the head of an Iranian "terrorist" force has brokered a deal between the two leading Shiite parties in Iraq, Sadr's movement and ISCI.
After his outlaw militiamen raised white flags and skedaddled from their latest round of combat with the Iraqi Army, radical Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr declared victory.
He always does. He understands media bravado. He wagers that survival bandaged by bombast and swathed in sensational headlines is a short-term triumph. Survive long enough, and Sadr bets he will prevail.
This time, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki issued a contrarian press release, however, calling the Iraqi Army's anti-militia operations in southern Iraq a "success."
A dispute over casualties in the firefights has ensued, as it always does. An Iraqi Interior Ministry spokesman alleged that Sadr's militia had been hit hard in six days of fighting, suffering 215 dead, 155 arrested and approximately 600 wounded. The government spokesman gave no casualty figures for Iraqi security forces.
No one, of course, could offer an independent confirmation, but if the numbers are accurate they provide an indirect confirmation of reports that Sadr's Mahdi Militia (Jaish al-Mahdi, hence the acronym JAM) had at least a couple thousand fighters scattered throughout southern Iraq. This is not shocking news, but a reason to launch a limited offensive when opportunity appeared.
Numbers, however, are a very limited gauge. The firefights, white flags, media debate and, for that matter, the Iraqi-led anti-militia offensive itself are the visible manifestations of a slow, opaque and occasionally violent political and psychological struggle that in the long term is likely democratic Iraq's most decisive: the control, reduction and eventual elimination of Shia gangs and terrorists strongly influenced if not directly supported by Iran.
Other Shia militia and gangs confront Iraq, but Sadr is the most vexing case. His father, a leading Shia cleric, was murdered -- many Iraqis believe at the order of Saddam Hussein. That makes his father a political and religious symbol.
And Sadr knows it. So do his financiers.
For four years, the U.S.-led coalition and the Iraqi government have intermittently sparred with Sadr, sometimes in parliament, sometimes in the streets.
The Iraqi government's strategy has been to bring former insurgents into the political process. Since interim Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi articulated that goal in mid-2004, the central government's complex array of enemies has sought to thwart that program.
Saddam's old cohorts managed to convince themselves that if they spread enough money around, killed enough people and hammered the U.S. electorate with bloody headlines the United States would leave and the Iraqi government would eventually collapse -- and they would return to power. Saddam's capture, trial and execution has all but snuffed out the old-line Baathists. Recall Maliki stoutly defended his decision to carry out the court's sentence of capital punishment. He bet with Saddam dead the tyrant's cult of personality would wither. It has.
Al-Qaida pursued the same strategy of blood for headlines. Al-Qaida in Iraq tried to ignite a sectarian war -- its now-dead emir, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, made that goal explicit in February 2004. Al-Qaida massacred en masse, to the point that U.S. Sen. Harry Reid (D for Defeatist) declared the war in Iraq lost. Then, the Sunni tribes in Anbar turned on al-Qaida. Sunni political integration is by no means complete, but al-Qaida has failed.
Now the Shia-led Iraqi government focuses on its chief Shia nemesis. How the Iraqi government handles Sadr matters. In August 2004, Sadr's thugs grabbed the Grand Mosque in Najaf. Sadr was counting on Americans to bomb the mosque. The United States opted to follow the political lead of Shia Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. Sistani's aides told coalition officers: "Let us deal with Sadr. We know how to handle him and will do so. However, the coalition must not make him a martyr."
The Iraqi way often appears to be indecisive, until you learn to look at its counter-insurgency methods in the frame of achieving political success, instead of the frame of American presidential elections.
In southern Iraq and east Baghdad, Sadr once again lost street face. Despite the predictable media umbrage, this translates into political deterioration.
Think of the Iraqi anti-Sadr method as a form of suffocation, a political war waged with the blessing of Ayatollah Sistani that requires daily economic and political action, persistent police efforts and occasional military thrusts.
Re:Bush and Maliki lose face to Iran and Sadr
« Reply #2 on: 2008-04-02 20:36:12 »
[ Hermit : A more nuanced view of Al Sadr ]
Who Is Iraq's "Firebrand Cleric"?
Interview: From Baghdad, veteran Middle East correspondent Patrick Cockburn explains why Muqtada al-Sadr is no maverick.
Source: Mother Jones Authors: Justin Elliott (Editorial fellow at Mother Jones) Dated: 2008-03-31
"Interview in Baghdad," "Interview in Najaf," "Interview in Basra," "Interview in Amara": The endnotes at the back of Middle East correspondent Patrick Cockburn's new book read like an atlas of Iraq. Such is the depth of reporting in Cockburn's Muqtada: Muqtada al-Sadr, the Shia Revival, and the Struggle for Iraq, a political biography-cum-war chronicle due out April 8.
As the U.K. Independent's correspondent, Cockburn has spent about half of the last five years reporting, unembedded, around Iraq, a country he's been visiting since 1977. His subject is the real Iraq, and Iraqi voices predominate in his work. British and American officials rarely appear in the book. (He assiduously avoids the U.S. military's Green Zone press briefings.) When Cockburn does give airtime to the official line, he's usually debunking it. It was this irreverent attitude that got him barred from entering Iraq in the late 1990s when the regime was displeased with Out of the Ashes: The Resurrection of Saddam Hussein, a collection of Iraq reportage focusing on the aftermath of the Gulf War, which Cockburn wrote with his brother. In Muqtada Cockburn both explores the rise of al-Sadr, undoubtedly one of the most important men in Iraq today, and traces the disintegration of Iraq through five years of American occupation.
After several failed attempts, I reached Cockburn by phone at the Al-Hamra Hotel in Baghdad March 17, just before the start of the recent fighting in Basra. In between broken connections and over the loud whir of a military helicopter above the hotel, I asked him what al-Sadr's role will be in the future Iraq and if, on the fifth anniversary of the invasion, he sees any reason for hope.
Mother Jones: In the beginning of your book, you write that Muqtada al-Sadr leads "the only mass movement in Iraqi politics." Can you elaborate on that, especially given that in the American media we still hear more about the official Iraqi government than some of these other factions?
Patrick Cockburn: It's always sort of amazing, sitting here in Baghdad, to watch visiting dignitaries—today we had Dick Cheney and John McCain—being received in the Green Zone by politicians who have usually very little support and seldom go outside the Green Zone. Muqtada leads the only real mass movement in Iraq. It's a mass movement of the Shia, who are 60 percent of the population, and of poor Shia—and most Shia are poor. Otherwise the place is full of sort of self-declared leaders, many of whom spend most of their time outside Iraq. You know, if you want to meet a lot of Iraqi leaders, the best places are the hotels in Amman or in London. In general the government here is amazingly unpopular.
MJ: What are the roots of his credibility among the people?
PC: Muqtada belongs to the most famous religious family in Iraq, which is the al-Sadr family. He's really the third in line. [Muqtada's father] drew his power from the first really important al-Sadr, Muhammad Baqir, who was executed by Saddam in 1980, together with his sister. So it's really a family of martyrs, and that's why Muqtada suddenly emerged from nowhere with the fall of Saddam. If you had passed around a picture of him in Washington at the time of the overthrow of Saddam, I doubt if any of them would have heard of Muqtada.
MJ: Did anyone outside or inside the country predict Muqtada's rise?
PC: No, absolutely not. His father was dead along with two of his brothers, assassinated by Saddam in 1999. His father-in-law had been executed. He was under sort of house arrest in Najaf and was just within inches of getting executed himself. So everybody—those who knew the family history—thought that the whole organization had been destroyed. What Muqtada had going for him was that he had been a senior lieutenant of his father, so he had street experience of politics from the 1990s. Also he had a sort of core of people who revered him who were politically experienced, and he brought this together very fast just in the days after the fall of Saddam.
His father was a very interesting character because he's almost the only person who persuaded Saddam to trust him. Saddam thought it would be a really smart political move after the great Shia uprising of 1991 if he could have his own Shia religious leader who'd be in his pocket. So he chose this guy, Muqtada's father, who came from the right family. Muqtada's father used this to promote a mass movement. And then at the last movement Saddam discovered he had been fostering this extremely dangerous enemy, who was refusing to use Saddam's name when he called for prayers, so Saddam had him murdered in Najaf.
MJ: Is the Western media epithet for Muqtada as the "firebrand cleric" accurate?
PC: The idea that he's a maverick is 100 percent contrary to his track record over the last five years. In fact he's very cautious, never pushing things too far, trying not to be pushed into a corner. [L. Paul] Jerry Bremer tried to arrest Muqtada and ignited a tremendous uprising over most of southern Iraq in 2004. You could see all these Americans in the Green Zone had completely failed to realize the kind of support he could get. They announced they were going to arrest him and suddenly the whole of southern Iraq erupted and Bremer [couldn't] control it anymore—but Muqtada did. Then there was a big siege of Najaf. But Muqtada always sort of looked for a way out. So the idea of him as a maverick cleric, a firebrand, is one of these absurd journalistic clichés that takes on a life of its own, despite the fact that its contradicted by everything that happens.
MJ: Another thing you see is journalists frequently describing him as a "radical cleric." Is there anything radical about al-Sadr?
PC: Well, it's slightly more accurate. He's radical in the sense that he wants the U.S. occupation to end and has always said so from the beginning. Secondly, his support among the Shia really runs along class lines; it's mainly the poor who support him. His organization runs an enormous social network. Despite the fact that there's billions of dollars sitting in the Iraqi government reserves, somehow they are incapable of getting it out to the people. There are a very large number of people here who are on the edge of starvation. For those sort of people—a sizable chunk of people—that service makes them regard Muqtada as a sort of god.
Another thing is that he's always been able to call on a core of young men. Young Shia who have been brought up with nothing, who are pretty anarchic, pretty dangerous. My book begins with a run-in I had with them in 2004 when they came close to killing me, and of course they have killed very large numbers of other Iraqis. That's a major source of strength for Muqtada.
MJ: You write that from the U.S. perspective, Muqtada looks too much like a younger version of Ayatollah Khomeini. Is there anything to that?
PC: There's an element of truth to it. But from the moment George Bush decided to overthrow Saddam, the people who were going to benefit here were the Shia, who are 60 percent of the population. So if you were ever going to have an election, then the Shia would take over. An awful lot of the American problems in Iraq over the last five years come from the U.S. thinking that in some way it can devise a formula here that Saddam would be gone and the Shia religious parties—guys who look a bit like Khomeini, not just Muqtada, but all the other clergy—wouldn't take over. The U.S. never found it. I don't think it's there.
MJ: So if the Democrats win the election in the United States, and they make good on their promise to pull out or mostly pull out from Iraq, what role would al-Sadr play in that scenario?
PC: A very critical role. Here is sort of the biggest Shia leader with the most popular support. If there were elections tomorrow he would probably sweep Shia Baghdad and most of the south. He's not going to take over the whole of Iraq because Iraq is such a divided place these days. The Kurds are never going to let the Arabs take over their chunk, and the Sunni are going to fight like tigers to keep the Shia from taking over their areas.
MJ: What would an Iraq under al-Sadr look like?
PC: I don't think the whole of Iraq would be under al-Sadr, but I think he would be the predominant force on the Shia side. Quite contrary to his sort of maverick, firebrand image, he's shown a propensity to deal with the other side, to look for compromises, to negotiate. You might have a loose federation [in Iraq]. There are some things that could hold it together, notably oil revenues. But at the moment, the much vaunted surge has had a measure of success primarily, to my mind, because Sunni and Shia Iraqis hate and fear each other more these days than they hate and fear the Americans.
MJ: You write in the book that the U.S. as well as Iraqi politicians habitually fail to recognize the extent to which hostility to the occupation drives Iraqi politics. How much of al-Sadr's popularity do you ascribe to him speaking against the occupation?
PC: I was doing a lot of interviews today with ordinary Iraqis, and they all bring it up, the question of the American occupation. The latest opinion polls show that seven out of ten Iraqis want foreign forces to leave Iraq, and most want them to leave now. One of the problems of the Iraqi government sitting in the Green Zone [is that] being associated with the occupation taints them and reduces their authority. Lots of people you talk to here, particularly Sunni, don't just say "the government," they say "the traitor government." In some ways this is extremely simple and obvious. There are very few countries in the world that welcome being occupied. And it's sort of strange that this very obvious fact—which has probably been a critical fact for why the U.S. is in such trouble here—has never really penetrated Washington. [ Hermit : Think of how the Resistance fought against the Vichy Governments against Occupation and you will realize not only the role the US is playing in the world today, but also how others see our "insurgents", "outlaws" and "rebels", who will, unless democractic aspirations are crushed, take over as the legitimate government from the puppets the US has appointed as soon as the US stops bombing their country. Smile at the inversion of meaning. Orwell was, as the USA is demonstrating, correct. ]
MJ: In your piece marking the fifth anniversary of the invasion, you describe Iraq as "a collection of hostile Sunni and Shia ghettoes divided by high concrete walls." That's a pretty grim picture. Do you see any reason for optimism on the horizon?
PC: Well, not greatly. Because it seems to me that all the things that have led to the violence are still there. The current situation reminds me of the war in Lebanon, which went on really from the mid-70s to 1990. You had periods where there was kind of an unstable balance of power. Baghdad has the same feeling at the moment. Sunni and Shia aren't coming together; they don't go into each other's areas. The Sunni-Shia dispute, the Arab-Kurd dispute, the Iraqi-American dispute—none of these things are resolved and any of them could ignite at any moment, and almost certainly will.
One of the problems with the media covering this place is that there are stereotypes of news, one of which is "war rages" and the other is "peace dawns." And there isn't much in between. When I talk to foreign journalists, often they are gritting their teeth because they've been asked for a piece about how shops are reopening and restaurants are reopening and so forth—happy pieces. And it just ain't so.
With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
How the U.S. Just Got Schooled by a 'Rag-Tag' Neighborhood Army in Iraq
By Gary Brecher, The eXile. Posted April 4, 2008.
A week ago, Bush called the offensive in Basra a "defining moment" for Iraq. Suddenly he's gotten very quiet.
What happened in Iraq this week was a beautiful lesson in the weird laws of guerrilla warfare. Unfortunately, it was the Americans who got schooled. Even now, people at my office are saying, "We won, right? Sadr told his men to give up, right?"
Wrong. Sadr won big. Iran won even bigger. Maliki, the Iraqi Army, Petraeus and Cheney lost.
For people raised on stories of conventional war, where both sides fight all-out until one side loses and gives up, what happened in Iraq this past week makes no sense at all. Sadr's Mahdi Army humiliated the Iraq Army on all fronts. In Basra, the Army's grand offensive, code-named "The Charge of the Knights," got turned into "The Total Humiliation of the Knights," like something out of an old Monty Python skit.
Thousands of police who were supposed to be backing up the Iraqi Army either refused to fight or defected to Sadr's Mahdi Army. In Basra, the Iraqi Army was stopped dead and clearly in danger of being crushed or forced to retreat from the city. In Baghdad, Sadr's militia was rocketing the Green Zone non-stop -- not a good look for the "Surge is working" PR drive -- and driving the Iraqi Army clean out of the 2.5-million-strong Shia slum, Sadr City. And in every poor Shia neighborhood in cities and towns all over Iraq, local units of the Mahdi Army were attacking the government forces.
Then, after four days of uninterruptedly kicking Iraqi Army ass, Sadr graciously announces that he's telling his men to end their "armed appearances" on the streets. Makes no sense, right? It makes a ton of sense, but you have to stop thinking of formal battles like Gettysburg and Stalingrad and think long and slow, like a guerrilla.
If you want to know how not to think about Iraq, just start with anything ever said or imagined by Cheney or Bush. Our Commander in Chief declared a week ago when the Iraqi Army first marched into Basra, "I would say this is a defining moment in the history of a free Iraq." When the Iraqi Army fled a few days later, he suddenly got very quiet. But anybody could see how deluded the poor fucker is just by all the nonsense he managed to cram into that 15-word sentence. I mean, "the history of a free Iraq"?
But that's nothing compared to Bush's fundamentally wrong notion that there's even such a thing as a "defining moment" in an urban guerrilla war. Guerrilla wars are slow, crock-pot wars. To win this kind of war, the long war, takes patience. Trying to force a "defining moment" by military action is not just ignorant and idiotic, but risks further demoralizing your side when that moment doesn't happen, as it inevitably won't. What happens when you launch premature strikes on a neighborhood-based group like the Mahdi Army is that you just end up convincing their neighborhoods that the occupiers are the enemy, and the Mahdi boys -- local guys you've known all your life -- are heroes, defending your glorious slum from the foreigners and their lackeys.
By the time a homegrown group like Sadr's is ready to "announce itself" on the streets, it's put in years of serious grassroots work winning over the locals block by block. The Mahdi Army runs its own little world in the neighborhoods it controls. It distributes food to the poor, deals out rough justice to the local criminals, and runs the checkpoints that keep Sunni suicide bombers off the block. It's the home team, the Oakland Raiders times one million, for people in places like Sadr City. You can't eradicate it without eradicating the whole neighborhood -- or making it so rich that people don't need a gang. That's probably the only sure way to end guerrilla wars: make the locals so rich they're not interested in gang life any more. And that's not going to happen any time soon for the people crammed into places like Sadr City. Until then, the Mahdi Army is their team and they're sticking by it.
By attacking Sadr's neighborhoods this week, Maliki's troops pushed the Shia masses closer to Sadr; and by losing, they made the slum people prouder than ever of their home team. That's what you get when you go for a "defining moment" in guerrilla war.
To understand what happened this week, you need to zoom out to the big picture, see what Petraeus and Maliki thought would happen, and then forward it to what actually did happen. Iraq right now has four real zones of influence: Kurdistan, which is withdrawing and fortifying itself as fast as it can; the Sunni Triangle, bloodied by four years of fighting the US and ready to be bribed for a while; Baghdad, which is turning into a Shia-dominated city fast; and Basra, solidly Shia. The major action now is Shia vs. Shia.
The way Petreaus and Maliki saw it, they've dealt with the Sunni insurgency and now it was time to send the Iraqi Army south to take sides in the militia battles around Basra and do a little shock-and-awe on Sadr.
The Shia are divided into lots of factions; for example, Bush's guy Maliki leads the Dawa Party, a small group, small enough that he got to be leader because he didn't threaten either of the two really big, serious Shia groups: the Sadrists and the supposedly more moderate SIIC. Both those groups have the classic urban guerrilla division into political party and armed wing. The SIIC's armed wing used to be called the Badr Brigade, and still fights under that name down in Basra. But the core of the Badr forces now go by a fancier name: the Iraqi Army.
The Badr Brigade has an interesting history. During the Iran-Iraq War, it fought for the Iranians against Saddam, as a big (50,000-man) auxiliary unit. When the U.S. disbanded Saddam's army and the Sunni went insurgent, the Badr Brigade stepped smoothly into the power vacuum and became the core of the new Iraqi Army. So don't think of this as a real Western-style national army, drawn from all of Iraq's various groups or any of that crap. The current Iraqi Army is a Shia militia, loyal to the SIIC, that just happens to be willing to wear the uniforms we bought them. They're not really in it for "the nation," much less their American paymasters. They're there to use their new fancy weapons and big money to push the SIIC's agenda down everybody else's throats.
And like I have to keep saying over and over, the purely military hardware aspect of this sort of war is the least important factor of all. The Iraqi Army/SIIC militia had the weaponry on their side, and they still got their asses kicked by the Sadrists, because the Sadrists were defending their home neighborhoods, those stinking slums that mean the whole world to people who live there. Victory in insurgency is a matter of morale, and you build it slowly, the way Mao said, by helping the locals in their dull little civvie lives. Then, when the army comes to try to take you down, they don't have a chance, because you've prepped the neighborhood well, the locals are your eyes and ears, and it just plain doesn't mean as much to the government troops as it does to your cadre who were raised there. That's why Hezbollah's part-time amateurs were able to beat the Israeli professionals in 2006, and that's why Sadr was ahead of the game when he called the fight off this week.
Truth is, if any group comes out of this looking good, militarily or morally, it's the Mahdi Army and their leader, the fat man himself, "Mookie" as they call him on Free Republic: Moqtada al-Sadr. His people aren't saints; they have their own kidnapping/murder squads, a lot of them connected with the Health Ministry, which is a Sadr stronghold. But the Sadrists have consistently stuck with the urban poor, tried to form alliances with the Sunni (didn't work) and played a cool, calm, long-term game -- just like Hezbollah in Lebanon. In fact, the quickest way to understand Sadr is to think of Hezbollah's leader, Nasrullah. Hezbollah built its power by providing social services to the poorest Lebanese Shi'ites, and the Mahdi Army works the same way. Of course you could argue that they both got the idea from the old master, Mao himself, who consistently downplayed the macho combat stuff and insisted that the guerrillas should work with the civilians, doing the dull peacetime stuff like public health, building projects, food distribution.
Like Hezbollah, the Sadrists cooperate with Iran, but no way in the world are they Iranian puppets. In fact, it's the SIIC's military wing -- the core of the current Iraqi Army -- that has an embarrassing history of fighting for the Iranians against their own country, Iraq. But that doesn't mean they're puppets either.
When Iraqi Shi'ites want to insult each other, they accuse each other of being pro-Iranian, and it is an accusation. They buy the idea of an "Iraqi nation," as long as it's their gang running it. One thing you can absolutely count on in the Middle East is that every clan, every sect, is going to look out for itself. The middle-class Shia in SIIC/Badr Brigades are using us; the Sadrists are using Iran; but they're both out for their own communities. Sadr would probably have been willing to cooperate with the U.S., if Bremer hadn't pushed him into rebellion in 2004. So it's a mistake to think of any of these groups as having permanent alliances. They're practical people.
So are the Iranians. They really know how to play this kind of long, slow war. They can control exactly the level of chaos inside Iraq by feeding weapons and money in when they want to heat the place up, then withholding supplies when they want to cool it down. They're embedded with every militia, even the Sunni groups, and they use them like control rods in a nuke reactor. The way the ceasefire this week was arranged says it all: a bunch of big Shia politicians flew to Qom, Khomeini's hometown in Iran, and begged the Iranians to stop the shooting. They talked to Sadr, and Sadr agreed -- for good reason.
And that brings us back to today's story problem in "How to Think Like A Guerrilla." The question was, "If Moqtada S. is kicking ass all over Iraq, why does he call off his militia before they can win total 'Western-style' victory?"
If you've learned your lesson here, you should be able to answer that question now. Sadr called off his boys because:
1. The first job of a guerrilla army is to stay alive. That's much more important than winning a Western-style victory. The Mahdi Army is intact, ready for the next round. Mao said it best: "Lose men to take land, land and men both lost; lose land and keep men, land can be retaken." In other words, play for the long term and remember that your troops are your biggest asset. Never go for broke.
2. The next most important job of a guerrilla army is to maintain and grow its support in the neighborhood. Sadr has his own constituency -- and I mean that literally, since all the Shia groups are positioning themselves for elections this Fall. By calling off the fight, he spares his people further gore and destruction and comes off as the compassionate defender of the poor. Just in time for campaign season.
3. A guerrilla army facing occupiers with a monopoly on air power is committing suicide by going for total victory on the ground, seizing an entire city or district. Just ask the Sunni, who bunkered up in Fallujah and got slaughtered. By melting back into the civilian population, the Sadrists are now invulnerable to air attack.
4. After four straight days of failure by the Badr Brigade/Iraqi Army, the US was frustrated enough to start committing American ground troops to the assault on Sadr. That would have meant serious casualties for the Mahdi Army, as it did when they took on US forces in 2004. Not that they're afraid to die for their neighborhood -- Shias? You kidding me? -- but because it would be stupid to die fighting the Americans when everyone in Iraq knows the US just doesn't figure much in the long term.
Sadr's not afraid of us, he and his commanders just see us as a dangerous nuisance, like a chained pit bull they have to step around. Ten years from now, every player in the current game will still be playing this slow, shady game, except one: the Americans.
Re:Bush and Maliki lose face to Iran and Sadr
« Reply #4 on: 2008-04-04 10:52:38 »
Updated
Mo
I would say that the article both over interprets and projects too much to be relied up on. Where it is correct, and I don't think it is wrong about everything, I think it is despite its analysis, not because of it.
Doesn't charitable listening - and plain common sense - require us to accept people's assertions about their motivations for what they do, unless we have evidence contradicting these assertions (including of course, evidence from action)?
If that is still the case (and I think it is), and if there is no contradiction (which, if there is, I am not aware of it), then rather than assertion of motivations as we see in this article - whether tribal, Machiavellian or strategic, and no matter how well these concepts might map to some actions, we should take al Sadr's assertion that he is acting out of compassion and doing the right thing according to his beliefs (as are Hezbollah and the Iranians) when they take care of the poor, feed the hungry, care for the sick, comfort widows and children, etc.
In addition, it is completely clear from the statements and actions of both parties, that al Mahliki & Co are firstly loyal to Iran and only then to the USA on which their rule depends, while al Sadr's primary objective is (as he has repeatedly asserted and shown) to rid Iraq of Americans as speedily as possible, just as other people in other countries occupied by brutal invaders have been motivated to do. The Iranian's interest in preserving the status quo is large, and they clearly have good reason and more than sufficient influence with al Mahlikii to get him to accede to conditions calculated to persuade al Sadr to accept a cease fire. Nonetheless, the Iranians also claim to be acting out of humanitarian motives, and again, there would be no difference in their actions if that were their primary motivation, and as such, were we even handed, we would thank-them for their intervention and be glad that they have the influence they do. That we don't do this tells us and the world that our theory, model and comprehension of what is happening in Iraq is faulty, that we are no longer (if we ever were) rational actors. Or perhaps it says something worse. That no matter what we say, that we do not want peace an stability in Iraq. Indeed, to a charitable listener, there is no difference in what we are doing in Iraq than an actor that wishes to maximize death, horror and confusion and to provoke an incident to justify attacking Iran would do.
With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
Iran now causes the majority of the violence and instability in Iraq, a trend that began in July 2007, according to U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, when U.S. and Iraqi military offensives swept al Qaeda from its safe havens around Baghdad.
Senior officials of the Iranian government, the U.S. military has noted in press briefings, support and in some cases control, illegal armed groups that are fighting American forces and undermining the Iraqi government. In particular, the recent fighting in Basra and Baghdad is not at root a civil war between Iraqi Shia political factions, but an ongoing struggle between the Iraqi government and illegal militias organized, trained, equipped and funded by Iran.
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and the Iraqi Security Forces are now fighting these militias, a long-standing demand of the U.S. that was articulated in congressional benchmarks in 2006. The question for Americans is simple: Will we support Iraq in this fight, or abandon its government and people?
Iran has sponsored illegal militias since the formation of the Maliki government in 2006. The Qods Force, Iran's premier terrorist training team and exporter of its revolution, provided between $750,000 and $3 million-worth of equipment and funding to Iraq's militias monthly in the first half of 2007, according to U.S. Brig. Gen. Kevin Bergner. In addition, the U.S. military and the press note that Lebanese Hezbollah under Qods Force auspices directly trained Iraqi fighters, sending military advisers to help Moqtada al-Sadr create the Mahdi Army in August 2003, to train Iraqi militias inside Iran in 2005, and to advise the militias inside Iraq since 2006.
The Iranian-trained militias operated in 2006-2008 as units known as Special Groups or Secret Cells, ostensibly claiming to serve within Mr. Sadr's militia. In reality, the U.S. military says their titular leader – the ex-Sadrist Qais Khazali – reported to a Lebanese Hezbollah commander, who in turn reported to the highest Qods Force leaders.
The foreign advisers organized these Iraqi opposition groups into a Hezbollah-style structure. The Special Groups kidnapped Iraqi government officials, ran death squads against Iraqi civilians, and regularly rocketed and mortared the Green Zone with Iranian-imported weapons. They smuggled in and placed highly-lethal, explosively-formed projectiles (EFPs) to kill U.S. soldiers. In short, Iranian-backed Special Groups prevented Iraq's government from effectively controlling the country in 2006, even removing some of the Mahdi Army from Mr. Sadr's control. In the recent clashes, the Special Groups coordinated the unrest and attacks of the regular Mahdi Army in the capital and provinces. In Baghdad, the Mahdi Army, in turn, facilitated Special Groups' movements.
Moqtada al Sadr ordered his militia to cease fire on March 30 after representatives of Mr. Maliki's Da'wa Party and others traveled to Iran to speak with the commander of the Qods Force. Days before, in a long interview with al Jazeera from an Iranian city, Mr. Sadr requested the release of Qais Khazali from U.S. custody. The recent, general violence ended when the Qods Force judged that it should end.
Where does this leave us? The Iraqi Army's operations in Basra did not eliminate illegal militias there. The Mahdi Army and the Special Groups have evidently fortified defenses around the city's perimeter, as well as some neighborhoods, which the Iraqi Army could not reduce at this time. But the operation also revealed new strengths of Iraq's government and Security Forces.
Mr. Maliki demonstrated his willingness to challenge Shiite militias and Iran in the Shiite heartland of Iraq. The Iraqi Security Forces ably demonstrated their capability to defend central Iraq, and quell an uprising of the Mahdi Army and the Special Groups in the most important cities between Baghdad and Basra. The remaining security problems in Basra will have to be addressed in future operations, which we should encourage the government of Iraq to undertake after additional planning and, perhaps, reinforcement.
The recent fighting in Iraq has also revealed much about our enemies. The intensity of Special Groups activities rose from January to March; U.S. and Iraqi forces found the large caches of EFPs and new Iranian rockets that often precede a Special Groups offensive. The Basra operations seem to have prompted the Special Groups and the Mahdi Army to launch this offensive prematurely, not according to plan. It did not succeed.
Iran and Mr. Sadr could not simply unleash a floodtide of violence that would overwhelm Iraqi Security Forces partnered with U.S. units, because they are more capable of handling the situation. For all of his nationalist rhetoric, Mr. Sadr is evidently not in control of his movement -- it appears that the decision to fight or not rested with the Qods Force commander and not with him. But Mr. Sadr's militia remains a reserve from which the Special Groups can and will draw in crisis.
These events provide an enormous opportunity for either the U.S. or for Iran – and whichever state responds most intelligently and quickly to the circumstances on the ground will gain the benefit. The U.S. should encourage the Iraqi government to defeat Iran's proxies and agents, and should provide the requisite assistance. It should encourage and support the Iraqi government's laudable determination to establish the rule of law throughout Iraq, not just where U.S. forces are present.
The U.S. and the Iraqi government must also expand the Sons of Iraq initiative – the program local Iraqis in Baghdad, Anbar and Diyala have utilized to secure their communities alongside Iraqi Security Forces – into Shiite areas. The U.S. should provide funding and support for these groups in the south, and services for their communities, as it does in Sunni areas. The Sons of Iraq have the potential to transform Iraqi politics profoundly, making the Shiite parties more responsive to the needs of the people and less responsive to taking direction from Iran.
Above all, the U.S. must recognize that Iran is engaged in a full-up proxy war against it in Iraq. Iranian agents and military forces are actively attacking U.S. forces and the government of Iraq. Every rocket that lands in the Green Zone should remind us that Iran's aims are evidently not benign – they are at best destabilizing and at worst hegemonic. The U.S. must defeat al Qaeda in Iraq, and protect Iraq from the direct military intervention of Iran. Failure to do so will invite Iranian domination of an Arab state that now seeks to be our ally.
Ms. Kagan is president of the Institute for the Study of War. Her reports on the military operations in Iraq are available at www.understandingwar.org.
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's faltering crackdown on Shiite militants has won the backing of Sunni Arab and Kurdish parties that fear both the powerful sectarian militias and the effects of failure on Iraq's fragile government.
The emergence of a common cause could help bridge Iraq's political rifts.
The head of the Kurdish self-ruled region, Massoud Barzani, has offered Kurdish troops to help fight anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army militia.
More significantly, Sunni Arab Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi signed off on a statement by President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, and the Shiite vice president, Adil Abdul-Mahdi, expressing support for the crackdown in the oil-rich southern city of Basra.
Al-Hashemi is one of al-Maliki's most bitter critics and the two have been locked in an acrimonious public quarrel for a year. Al-Hashemi has accused the prime minister of sectarian favoritism and al-Maliki has complained that the Sunni vice president is blocking key legislation.
On Thursday, however, al-Maliki paid al-Hashemi a rare visit. A statement by al-Hashemi's office said the vice president told al-Maliki that "we can bite the bullet and put aside our political differences."
"The main aim at this critical juncture is to ensure that our political choices are made in Iraq's interest," al-Hashemi said.
Shiite militias were responsible for the deaths of thousands of Sunni Arabs in the sectarian bloodletting of 2006 and 2007. The Mahdi Army is blamed for much of the killing.
A top leadership council made up of Talabani, al-Maliki and leaders of major political blocs called Saturday on Iraqi parties to disband their militias or risk being barred from contesting elections and participating in political life.
The council also affirmed its support for al-Maliki's campaign against militias and "outlaws."
"I think the government is now enjoying the support of most political groups because it has adopted a correct approach to the militia problem," said Hussein al-Falluji, a lawmaker from parliament's largest Sunni Arab bloc, the three-party Iraqi Accordance Front. Al-Hashemi heads one of the three, the Iraqi Islamic Party.
The Accordance Front pulled out of al-Maliki's Cabinet in August to protest his policies. The newfound support over militias could help al-Maliki persuade the five Sunni ministers who quit their posts to return.
If he succeeds, that would constitute a big step toward national reconciliation, something the U.S. has long demanded.
Still, the Sunnis are looking for concessions from al-Maliki, whom they accuse of monopolizing power.
"The mission ahead is clear," al-Hashemi's office said in an April 2 statement. "There must be a national program that obliges everyone to reconsider, show flexibility, accept the others and ... work in the spirit of one team."
Whether that happens depends largely on how the government deals with the issue of Shiite militias.
The Basra crackdown, ostensibly waged against "outlaws" and "criminal gangs," bogged down in the face of fierce resistance and discontent in the ranks of government forces. Major combat eased after al-Sadr asked his militia to stop fighting last Sunday.
But al-Maliki continued his tough rhetoric, threatening to take his crackdown to the Mahdi Army's strongholds in Baghdad. Al-Sadr hinted at retaliation, and the prime minister backed down, freezing raids and arrests targeting the young cleric's supporters.
Barzani, the Kurdish leader, has been at sharp odds with al-Maliki's government over what he sees as its lackluster reaction to Turkish military moves against Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq. The Kurds are also angry over the national government's opposition to Kurdish deals with foreign oil companies.
But the Kurds, for years Washington's most reliable allies in Iraq, also see the Sadrists' anti-U.S. fervor as a threat to the country's political process and its stability.
Al-Sadr is openly opposed to a federal system, arguing that carving up the country into self-rule regions similar to that in Kurdistan would lead to Iraq's breakup. Another source of tension with the Kurds is the Sadrists' vehement opposition to Kurdish claims to the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, which they want to annex to their region over the opposition of its Arab and Turkomen residents.
"I think the events in Basra will help bridge the gap between the central government and Kurdistan authorities," said Fouad Massoum, a senior Kurdish lawmaker.
Al-Maliki has sought to cast himself as a national leader who is above the country's sectarian divide, saying that he was going after "outlaws" and "criminal gangs" regardless of their sect, ethnicity or party links.
But other motives may have played a role in the crackdown.
Provincial elections are scheduled to be held before Oct. 1 and Shiite parties are gearing up for a tough contest in the Shiite heartland of southern Iraq, where oil-rich Basra and the wealthy religious centers of Najaf and Karbala are prizes.
A successful crackdown in Basra would have boosted the election chances of al-Maliki's Dawa party and his Shiite allies in the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, whose Badr Brigade militia is the Mahdi Army's sworn enemy.
The Supreme Council hopes to win the fall vote so it can form a self-ruled region similar to the Kurdish one in the north — something the Sadrists oppose. Key council figures also want the crackdown to continue — even at the risk of a new round of fighting.
"He must impose the law on everyone, and he (al-Maliki) told us this is his intention," said Jalal Eddin al-Sagheer, a hardline cleric associated with the Supreme Council, a close ally of Iraq's Kurds. "We reject any deals or negotiations."
Iraq's major Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish parties have closed ranks to force anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr to disband his Mahdi Army militia or leave politics, lawmakers and officials involved in the effort said Sunday.
Such a bold move risks a violent backlash by al-Sadr's Shiite militia. But if it succeeds it could cause a major realignment of Iraq's political landscape.
The first step will be adding language to a draft election bill banning parties that operate militias from fielding candidates in provincial balloting this fall, the officials and lawmakers said. The government intends to send the draft to parliament within days and hopes to win approval within weeks.
"We, the Sadrists, are in a predicament," lawmaker Hassan al-Rubaie said Sunday. "Even the blocs that had in the past supported us are now against us and we cannot stop them from taking action against us in parliament."
Al-Sadr controls 30 of the 275 parliament seats, a substantial figure but not enough to block legislation.
Al-Rubaie said the threat was so serious that a delegation might have to discuss the issue with al-Sadr in person. The young cleric, who has disappeared from the public eye for nearly a year, is believed to be in the Iranian holy city of Qom.
In a rare public signal of dissent in Sadrist ranks, al-Rubaie complained that "those close" to al-Sadr "are radicals and that poses problems," suggesting that some of the cleric's confidants may be urging him toward a showdown.
"We must go and explain to him in person that there's a problem," he said.
U.S. officials have been pressing Iraq's government for years to disband the militias, including the Mahdi Army.
All major political parties are believed to maintain links to armed groups, although none acknowledge it. Some groups, including militias of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's Dawa party and al-Sadr's chief rival, the Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council, have been integrated into the government security services.
That put them nominally under the government's authority, although they are believed to maintain ties to the political parties and retain their command structures.
Uprisings in 2004 by al-Sadr's militiamen ended through mediation by top Shiite clerics. Shiite leaders then attempted to bring the Sadrists into the political mainstream, offering them Cabinet posts and deferring to them on some major security issues.
But attacks by Shiite extremists continued, allegedly carried out by pro-Iranian splinter groups.
The militia issue took on new urgency after al-Maliki launched a major operation March 25 against Shiite extremists in Basra and fighting quickly spread from the southern port city to Baghdad and elsewhere.
The Sadrists believed the Basra crackdown was aimed at weakening their movement before the fall elections. They insisted al-Maliki was encouraged to move against them by their chief Shiite rivals - the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council.
U.S. and Iraqi officials insist the crackdown is directed at criminal gangs and splinter groups supported by Iran.
Al-Sadr ordered his fighters off the streets March 30 under a deal brokered in Iran. But the truce left the militia intact and armed and did not address the long-term threat.
"We want the Sadrists to disband the Mahdi Army. Just freezing it is no longer acceptable," said Sadiq al-Rikabi, a senior adviser to al-Maliki. "The new election law will prevent any party that has weapons or runs a militia from contesting elections."
Broad outlines of the strategy to combat the militias were made public late Saturday in a statement by the Political Council for National Security, a top leadership body including the national president, prime minister and leaders of major parties in parliament.
The statement called on parties to disband their militias or face a political ban. Although the statement did not mention the Sadrists, the intent was clear.
President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, said Sunday that the statement was adopted after "heated, cordial, frank and transparent discussion," Al-Rubaie and another Sadrist lawmaker who attended objected to the call for militias to disband, he said.
Al-Rubaie confirmed Talabani's account and said "our political isolation was very clear and real during the meeting."
Kurdish lawmaker Mahmoud Othman said the Sadrists must either disband the militia "or face the Americans." He was alluding to the possibility of full-scale U.S. military involvement if al-Sadr refuses to disband his militia and the government decides to disarm it by force.
Al-Sadr has called on supporters to stage a "million-strong" protest in Baghdad on Wednesday to mark the fifth anniversary of the city's capture by U.S. troops.
"We will watch it carefully," said Reda Jawad Taqi, a senior member of the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council.
[Salamantis] Sadr later cancelled his 'Million Mahdi March'; his previous recent attempts at such protests have been embarrassingly poorly attended.
Five years after Saddam Hussein was toppled from power, Iraq and the U.S. face important choices for their future relationship – choices that will have profound long-term ramifications for both countries.
Iraq, freed from a ruthless dictatorship, has chosen plurality, democracy and federalism as a system of government. It is struggling to implement them against a formidable set of internal and external challenges. The leaders of the new Iraq must further demonstrate resolve to defend their choices and rise above parochial interests.
Having intervened and committed itself so deeply, the U.S. is debating the level and cost of its engagement. I submit that it cannot afford to lose this fight to its enemies. The destinies of the U.S. and Iraq have become intertwined and their national interests very closely linked.
The big test for Iraq is to find the necessary internal accommodations between competing political interests, enabling the country to keep outside interference at bay and ensure its internal cohesion and national unity. The big test for the U.S. is to maintain its resolve while adjusting its tactics and policies to achieve success in Iraq.
Those who see only serious problems within the Iraqi government and society miss the point. Iraqis are the first to admit to their shortcomings. What is important is that they are determined to overcome them. They also know it will be a long and painful process of incremental progress, punctuated by setbacks.
Those who argue that Iraq is fractured and hopelessly broken – a Humpty Dumpty that can never be put together again – are wrong. Many countries have experienced great difficulties and emerged united and strong. Iraqi national identity has been weakened, but it is alive and kicking, and will embarrass all of those who rushed to write its obituary.
A year ago some people were convinced that Iraq was sliding into a civil war. It was precisely the sense of Iraqi national identity that helped to avert it.
Others considered Iraq lost to terrorists and militias. Again, it was the sense of national identity, as well as a tradition of tolerance, that made the communities in Al Anbar and elsewhere rise up against al Qaeda. This same sense of national identity was behind the widespread rejection of proposals to carve up the country into federal regions on a sectarian basis.
The convulsions of a society battered by decades of brutality and deprivation are all too evident. But the resilience, tenacity and commitment to national unity are no less evident. The glass may be half-empty, but it is also half full and filling up. Slowly perhaps, but surely. The achievements which Iraqis have accomplished under fire spanning the security, economic and political spheres stand as a testimony to their determination to succeed.
Yet the challenges the Iraqi government still faces are daunting. In addition to fighting terrorists and extremists, the government needs to reform its security forces and bureaucracy, purging them of sectarian discrimination and debilitating corruption. Only by doing this will it be able to deliver better services to its citizens and obtain full legitimacy.
Today, the world is facing a new and dangerous threat of international extremism and terrorism. The epicenter of this confrontation is Iraq. The new enemy is harder to defeat because it is not confined to a state, though some states are involved in its creation and promotion. It is diffused throughout many societies. But this enemy can and must be defeated. As the struggles of the last century shaped our world, this struggle will shape the world for generations to come.
This is not to say that this struggle is simple: the good versus the bad. It is complex. In Iraq, there are many layers of competing visions, interests and political objectives existing simultaneously. The people of Iraq were traumatized for decades. They are as vulnerable to the worst elements among them as they are to external forces. But there are enough of them with the will to fight for their future and their country.
This was demonstrated by the recent events in Basra, where the Iraqi government decided to pursue outlaws and armed militias engaged in criminal activities and the terrorizing of communities. It was a brave attempt given the circumstances, and was supported by all the political groups in Iraq except for the Sadrists. This was Round One. The fight will continue.
The salvation of Iraqis and the interests of the U.S. coincide. They lie in the defeat of the terrorists and extremists, and the frustration of the ambitions of all those who want this joint American-Iraqi endeavor to fail. This endeavor is costly, in every sense. But failure would be immeasurably costlier. That is why we need to build a long-term strategic alliance, and to make it work. It is in this context that we must look at the current negotiations between the U.S. and Iraq to reach a Status of Forces Agreement and a Strategic Framework Agreement.
After a bumpy learning curve, the U.S. has started to do things better in Iraq. The surge, applying the counterinsurgency principles of Gen. David Petraeus, has produced tangible results. It is not time to give up.
Mr. Sumaida'ie is Iraq's ambassador to the United States.
That's how analysts in Tehran describe events last month in Basra. Iran's state-run media have de facto confirmed that this was no spontaneous "uprising." Rather, Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) tried to seize control of Iraq's second-largest city using local Shiite militias as a Trojan horse.
Tehran's decision to make the gamble was based on three assumptions:
* Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki wouldn't have the courage to defend Basra at the risk of burning his bridges with the Islamic Republic in Iran.
* The international force would be in no position to intervene in the Basra battle. The British, who controlled Basra until last December, had no desire to return, especially if this meant getting involved in fighting. The Americans, meanwhile, never had enough troops to finish off al-Qaeda-in-Iraq, let alone fight Iran and its local militias on a new front.
* The Shiite clerical leadership in Najaf would oppose intervention by the new Iraqi security forces in a battle that could lead to heavy Shiite casualties.
The Iranian plan - developed by Revolutionary Guard's Quds (Jerusalem) unit, which is in charge of "exporting the Islamic Revolution" - aimed at a quick victory. To achieve that, Tehran spent vast sums persuading local Iraqi security personnel to switch sides or to remain neutral.
The hoped-for victory was to be achieved as part of a massive Shiite uprising spreading from Baghdad to the south via heartland cities such as Karbala, Kut and al-Amarah. A barrage of rockets and missiles against the "Green Zone" in Baghdad and armed attacks on a dozen police stations and Iraqi army barracks in the Shiite heartland were designed to keep the Maliki government under pressure.
To seize control of Basra, Quds commanders used units known as Special Groups. These consist of individuals recruited from among the estimated 1.8 million Iraqi refugees who spent more than two decades in Iran during Saddam Hussein's reign. They returned to Iraq shortly after Saddam's fall and started to act as liaisons between Quds and local Shiite militias.
In last month's operation, Quds commanders used the name and insignia of the Mahdi Army, a militia originally created by the maverick cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, as a cover for the Special Groups.
Initially, Quds commanders appeared to have won their bet. Their Special Groups and Mahdi Army allies easily seized control of key areas of Basra when more than 500 Iraqi security personnel abandoned their positions and disappeared into the woodwork.
Soon, however, the tide turned. Maliki proved that he had the courage to lead the new Iraqi Security Force (ISF) into battle, even if that meant confronting Iran. The ISF showed that it had the capacity and the will to fight.
Only a year ago, the ISF had been unable to provide three brigades (some 9,000 men) to help the US-led "surge" restore security in Baghdad. This time, the ISF had no difficulty deploying 15 brigades (30,000 men) for the battle of Basra.
Led by Gen. Mohan al-Freiji, the Iraqi force sent to Basra was the largest that the ISF had put together since its creation five years ago. This was the first time that the ISF was in charge of a major operation from start to finish and was fighting a large, well-armed adversary without US advisers.
During the Basra battles, the ISF did call on British and US forces to provide some firepower, especially via air strikes against enemy positions. But, in another first, the ISF used its own aircraft to transport troops and materiel and relied on its own communication system.
The expected call from the Najaf ayatollahs to stop "Shiite fratricide" failed to materialize. Grand Ayatollah Ali-Muhammad Sistani, the top cleric in Iraq, gave his blessings to the Maliki-launched operation. More broadly, the Shiite uprisings in Baghdad, Karbala, Najaf and other cities that Quds commanders had counted upon didn't happen. The "Green Zone" wasn't evacuated in panic under a barrage of rockets and missiles.
After more than a week of fighting, the Iraqis forced the Quds commanders to call for a cease-fire through Sadr. The Iraqi commander agreed - provided that the Quds force directly guaranteed it. To highlight Iran's role in the episode, he insisted that the Quds force dispatch a senior commander to finalize the accord.
The Iran-backed side lost more than 600 men, with more than 1,000 injured. The ISF lost 88 dead and 122 wounded.
Some analysts suggest this was the first war between new Iraq and the Islamic Republic. If so, the Iraqis won.
To be sure, the Iranian-backed side lost partly because Iran couldn't use its full might, especially its air force. (That almost certainly would've led to war between Iran and the US-led coalition in Iraq.)
The battle for Basra showed that Iraq has a new army that's willing and able to fight. If the 15 brigades that fought are a sample, the new Iraq may have an effective army of more than 300,000 before year's end.
But the battle also showed that the ISF still lacks the weapons systems, including attack aircraft and longer-range missiles, needed to transform tactical victories into strategic ones. The Iranian-sponsored Special Groups and their Mahdi Army allies simply disappeared from the scene, taking their weapons with them, waiting for another fight.
Tehran tried to test the waters in Basra and, as an opportunist power, would've annexed southern Iraq under a quisling administration had that been attainable at a low cost. Once it became clear that the cost might be higher than the Quds force expected, Tehran opted to back down.
Yet this was just the first round. The struggle for Iraq isn't over.
Re:Bush and Maliki lose face to Iran and Sadr
« Reply #6 on: 2008-05-14 15:37:06 »
Hermit,
Fair questions no doubt. I have no first hand experience of the numerous conflicts occurring in Iraq, so I can't fairly judge them and their motivations indirectly, but can only read the accounts of others. However, I do have first hand experience through media immersion and shared culture with this incompetant US administration. Their statements in regards to Iraq on their face lack any logical consistency that any US citizen with decent reading and critical thinking skills can easily spot regardless of his or her own lack of direct knowledge . . . unless one has some independent desire to believe without any concern with reality.
Honestly I don't really know what's happening in Iraq (do you?) other than the fact that my government is obviously incapable of any level of candor or reason on that topic. The rhetorical truthiness slop that passes for their idea of analysis, and their already established record of deliberate deception should warn anyone with an IQ above room termperature that whatever is happening is horribly wrong and obviously inspires our leadership and their lackeys to ever greater levels of intellectual dishonesty. Mostly I just seek to promote any plausibly credible alternative to the BushCheney propaganda black hole. I'm sure some of it may be misguided and wrong for reasons I can't culturally fathom at the moment, but deserve greater consideration at this point than the sources we already know are incapable of any reasonable level of integrity.
Re:Bush and Maliki lose face to Iran and Sadr
« Reply #7 on: 2008-05-15 15:14:39 »
[Mo] I don't really know what's happening in Iraq (do you?)
[Hermit] I think I do - at least as well as anyone whose boots are not on the ground - and definitely better than most US resources with which I am familiar. I know the people and the country of Iraq as well as, as you know, military affairs, counter insurgency operations and national security issues, from personal experience, history through study and I still read extensively on current affairs and military and security issues from multiple perspectives (especially Russian, British, Arabic, Israeli, Military and Security Strategic Analysis resources as well as Antiwar Americans who I regard as having a much more accurate perspective of the debacle than any "prowar" sources). Not having any particular bias or axe to grind gives me the ability to evaluate the propaganda with what I consider a useful degree of detachment.
[Hermit] As for the rest, as always, I salute your attempts at intellectual rigor (even when I consider it incorrect) and wholeheartedly agree on both US Media as well as the delusional desire to believe being a prerequisite to the acceptance anything propagated by the Whitehouse at face value.
With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
Re:Bush and Maliki lose face to Iran and Sadr
« Reply #8 on: 2008-05-16 00:02:44 »
The Myth of the Iranian Sanctuary
[ Hermit : Just in time to confirm my analysis, Scott Ritter, someone with whom I frequently disagree yet who has earned a great deal of respect for his highly competent analysis, on Iran. ]
Source: Antiwar.com [b]Authors: Scott Ritter Dated: 2008-05-15
Scott Ritter is a former UNSCOM weapons inspector in Iraq and the author of Target Iran: The Truth Behind the White House's Plans for Regime Change (Nation Books, 2006).
Recently I was invited to provide testimony before the Chicago City Council on a proposed resolution to oppose any US military action against Iran. I salute the City Council for having the courage and sense of civic responsibility to consider a resolution which would pressure the Congressional delegation of the State of Illinois to heed the will of the citizens of Chicago. The resolution, as written at the time of the hearing, was a strong indictment of the current policies of the Bush administration in Iran as well as Iraq, and underscored the insufficiency of just cause for any military action against Iran. The resolution pushed for a diplomatic solution to all problems that might exist between Iran and the United States, noting that a failure to pursue diplomacy with Iraq has resulted in a war which not only has killed thousands of Americans and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, but cost each ward in the City of Chicago some 104 million dollars which would otherwise have been used to benefit its citizens.
Not all in attendance were in support of this resolution. Alderman James A. Balcer, of Chicago's 11th Ward, offered a strongly-felt counter argument, noting that if Iran was providing sanctuary for forces that are responsible for the deaths of American service members in Iraq, then the only viable course of action available to the United States would be an American military strike to take out such sanctuaries.
On the surface, this is a powerful and compelling argument, and one that Alderman Balcer is well positioned to make. As a Marine infantryman who served in Vietnam, Alderman Balcer was a participant in Operation Dewey Canyon, a bold assault by the 9th Marine Regiment through the A Shau Valley and into Laos, the purpose of which was to destroy military material that was being stored in, and transported through, sanctuaries in Laos by the North Vietnamese in support of their operations in South Vietnam. In short, Balcer and his fellow Marines were dispatched to ‘take out' a sanctuary that was responsible for facilitating the deaths of Americans in South Vietnam.
The resultant Operation Dewey Canyon is the stuff of Marine Corps legend, an epic battle that left over 1,600 North Vietnamese dead, and huge amounts of combat material and weapons destroyed. The cost for the Marines was not insignificant, with 130 Marines killed and 932 wounded. Complementary combat missions into Laos by US Army Special Operations Forces, known as Operation Prairie Fire, likewise targeted North Vietnamese"sanctuaries". Dozens more Americans were killed and wounded in this fighting.
Alderman Balcer is rightly proud of his service to the Marines and our nation, and as he points out, Operation Dewey Canyon contributed to an overall degradation of enemy combat capability in South Vietnam so that a repeat of the 1968 Tet Offensive could not occur. This may be true, to a degree. However, Operation Dewey Canyon did not stop the Vietnam War. On February 23, 1969, the Viet Cong launched 110 attacks through South Vietnam, including targets in Saigon. On February 25, 1969, the North Vietnamese launched an assault on Marines stationed along the DMZ, killing 32 Marines. This prompted a Marine offensive into the DMZ on March 15, 1969. On March 17 Richard Nixon, recently sworn in as President, and promising to seek “peace with honor” in Vietnam, authorized the secret bombing of Cambodia, the purpose of which was to destroy North Vietnamese sanctuaries located there.
By April 1969, American force levels in Vietnam reached 543,000, the largest concentration in the history of that conflict. In mid-May 1969 US Army forces battled in the A Shau valley, scene of Operation Dewey Canyon back in January, losing 46 men killed and more than 400 wounded in a ten day battle for a piece of terrain known as "Hamburger Hill." The Vietnam War was over. American forces began the long process of drawing down, and turning the battle over to their South Vietnamese allies. Two years after the original Operation Dewey Canyon, the United States, with their newly empowered South Vietnamese allies, underscored the futility of a counter-sanctuary strategy by launching Operation Dewey Canyon II, a strike through the A Shau Valley into Laos. Over 50% of the South Vietnamese force of 14,000 men were killed or captured. The United States lost 215 men, with over 100 helicopters shot down and over 600 helicopters damaged.
There is a huge problem in trying to link the counter-sanctuary strategy employed in Vietnam and any proposed counter-sanctuary strategy that might be employed against Iran. First and foremost, it doesn't work. Any time a nation is compelled to strike "sanctuaries" as a means of relieving pressure on the front-line forces, it is an acknowledgment that the front-line forces are incapable of accomplishing their mission. The problem facing American forces in Iraq is not so-called "sanctuaries" alleged to be operating in Iran, but rather the reality that the United States in engaged in an unpopular, and increasingly brutal, occupation in Iraq that cannot win regardless of what is transpiring in Iran. This occupation is being resisted by Iraqis, not Iranians. Bombing Iran, or worse, launching cross-border operations by US ground forces, will not reduce the will of the Iraqis who fight for their homeland and way of life. It will only enlarge the theater of operations, and increase the cost of war to the United States in terms of dead and wounded Americans, wasted national treasure, and crippled prestige around the world.
The skill and bravery of those American forces called upon to carry out any cross-border attack into Iran can never be denigrated, just as the courage and fortitude of Marines like Alderman Balcer can never be questioned as they fought in battles such as Operation Dewey Canyon. The problem isn't the troops, but rather the policies they are called upon to implement. The Vietnam War was a bad war for America to be fighting, just as the Iraq war is a bad war. No amount of courage and sacrifice on the part of American fighting men and women can alter this fact. In fact, we do those who honor us a huge disservice by continuing to allow them to fight and die in a cause unworthy of the sacrifice they are prepared to make.
The most frustrating aspect of Alderman Balcer's citing of the Vietnam War as a parallel argument for justifying a military strike into Iran isn't just that historically these type of actions never work (Americans are an optimistic people, ever convinced that "this time we'll do it right," when the reality is that history simply keeps repeating itself). It is that the Vietnam model doesn't fit. In order for there to be a parallel between the situation in Vietnam and the one we face in Iraq, there would have to be similar casts of characters engaged in similar types of activities. On the surface, we can say that we have a protagonist (the United States), and an antagonist (North Vietnam then, Iran now). We then layer on the supporting cast – the South Vietnamese government/the government of Iraq on the one hand, and the Viet Cong and the Shi'a rebels on the other.
This is where the parallel falls apart. There was angst between the North Vietnamese and South Vietnamese that manifested itself in violence, played out directly and through proxy (i.e., the Viet Cong). Yet in Iraq today, we have a situation where the government of Iraq (dominated by the Da'wa Party and the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, both Iranian created, funded and controlled) is a direct extension of Iranian political will and control in Iraq. For the Vietnam parallel to hold true, we would have to replace the South Vietnamese government with the Viet Cong, which immediately negates the whole argument in its entirety. Why would the North Vietnamese undermine the Viet Cong, when their whole purpose was to achieve Communist control of Vietnam in the first place? If the Viet Cong were in power in South Vietnam, then the North Vietnamese strategy would be to work with the Viet Cong to get the Americans out of Vietnam, not to conspire to create the conditions which would expand the American military involvement in Vietnam.
The Iranians have already achieved political victory in Iraq. All they want now is to create long-lasting stability. The last thing the Iranians would do is create a new "Viet Cong" to undermine the government of Iraq. Thus, if one accepts the premise of the United States that it is Iran which is responsible for funding and training forces hostile to the government of Iraq, then one would have to accept the notion that Iran is at war with…Iran. This is, frankly speaking, absurd in the extreme. The Iranians, far from being the instigators of violence in Iraq, play the role of peacemaker. It is Iran which brokered the ceasefire in Basra which ended the fighting between the US/Iraqi forces and the Mahdi Army of the Moqtada al-Sadr. Iran likewise seeks to play a moderating force in Baghdad, and in northern Iraq, where it works to diplomatically resolve the political problems with al-Sadr and the Kurds, respectively. If only the United States were so-inclined. The so-called "Quds Force" officials captured by the United States inside Iraq were carrying out diplomatic functions conducive to peace, not facilitating the spread of violence. The fact that the United States has released most of these "Quds Force" members, declaring them neither a security threat nor being of intelligence value, only underscores this reality.
There simply is no evidence provided to sustain the allegations that Iran is waging a proxy war against the United States in Iraq, and that Iran is providing so-called "sanctuaries" for the training and arming of these proxies. The United States has yet to be able to provide physical evidence of any large-scale cache of Iranian-produced weapons. Press releases do not count as evidence. Likewise, the alleged links between the Shi'a fighters in Iraq, and Iranian/Hezbollah sponsors in Iran, are illusory. American military briefers have referred to several captured fighters – all Iraqi – who they claimed provided testimony on the existence of such a link. First, in this day and age of torture, we must be wary of so-called "evidence" produced by a system which condones torture as a means of extracting confessions. As a former intelligence officer, I can state with absolute certainty that the norms and standards which dictated that any information so gathered must be treated as suspect, since anyone can be made to say anything under duress, have not been altered by any "new reality" imagined by the Bush administration post September 11, 2001. The only thing which remains constant is the moral depravity of torture and the unreliability of information so obtained.
Another problem facing the "Iran as sanctuary" argument is that we haven't a clue what we would be striking to begin with. Alleged camps may exist as physical points on a map, but have nothing to do with what we allege to be taking place there. The Hezbollah connection is most disturbing, not because it reinforces what we already know to be true – that Iran supports Hezbollah – but rather is underscores what we don't understand. Moqtada al-Sadr comes from a family with long-standing historical ties with both Iran and Lebanon. Indeed, the al-Sadr family is directly linked to Lebanese Shi'a who created the Amal movement in Lebanon. It was a radicalized faction of this Amal movement, having broken away in 1985, which became Hezbollah.
The mixing of family and politics is always a complicated affair, and can only be interpreted by those who take the time to navigate the complex layers of intrigue thus created. It is not something condusive to haphazard analysis from people ill-equipped to study the problem. For military analysts in Iraq, the capture of a person carrying a Lebanese passport with Iranian immigration stamps becomes defacto evidence of an Iranian-Hezbollah conspiracy, when in fact all it might represent is the simple traveling of a family member from Lebanon, through Iran, and into Iraq – by far the safest route. And to think that the Iranian "Quds Force" would not exploit family connections in an effort to moderate the stance taken by Moqtada al-Sadr and his Mahdi Army is to fail to understand the commitment of Iran for a peaceful outcome to the violence in Iraq.
The fact of the matter is, there is no "sanctuary" problem in Iran worthy of American military action. These illusory "sanctuaries" are but a myth propagated by those elements within the Bush administration, namely the Office of the Vice President, which are desirous of seeing American policy toward Iran shaped by the reality of war, no matter how artificially and fraudulently justified. These elements are fearful of a legitimate debate on the merits of military action against Iran, because they know that from such a debate the emptiness of their cause, logically and morally, will be exposed for all to see.
The worst course of action for those who seek to determine policy by exploiting the fears of a population operating in ignorance of the facts is to conduct open hearings which serve to expose bad policy to sunlight, and empower those present with knowledge and information so that their fears can be assuaged with enlightenment. The recent hearings held by the Chicago City Council on Iran are representative of this kind of "sunshine policy," which if our elected officials in Washington, DC cannot muster the courage to convene, must then be replicated throughout the United States in the councils of its cities, towns and villages so that the will of the people can be given voice. Hopefully, the will of the people, so empowered, can manifest itself in a manner which awakens the sleeping Tiger of American democracy, namely the Congress of the United States, so that irresponsible war on Iran, promoted by an illegitimate unitary executive operating void of constitutional checks and balances, can be stopped before it wreaks its devastation on the people of Iran, and by extension, the people of the United States.
I would hope that Alderman Balcer would reconsider his opposition to the resolution being heard by the City Council of Chicago, and understand that the best policy direction that can be taken today vis-à-vis Iraq and Iran is not to embrace policies which create the inevitability of new "Operation Dewey Canyons," but rather ensure that Americans are never again called upon to sacrifice their lives in vain for wars which are not only avoidable, but serve no purpose in promoting either the legitimate defense of the United States or the greater good.
With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
BAGHDAD, IRAQ: The nighttime walk through a difficult neighborhood in southern Rusafa was uneventful; a careful “presence patrol” designed to show local citizens American forces and gauge public opinion. The jumbled maze of brightly-lit ramshackle shops and pitch-black back alleys is one of the less secure parts of the district.
The few blocks are “a neighborhood with the most potential to become violent because of the JAM [Mahdi Army] Special Groups networks that are known to operate in that area,” according to Lieutenant Mike Hebert, the patrol’s leader. No one challenged the platoon, and the expressions of Iraqi civilians were studiously neutral. But the Mahdi Army presence was apparent in the nervous energy of shopkeepers who hesitantly spoke with the Americans, a fear that increased when directly asked about the Shia militia.
Rusafa is a large district in central Baghdad bordered by the Tigris River to the southwest and Sadr City to the northeast. The district is predominantly Shia, but contains significant Sunni enclaves and a small Christian population, with a surprising number of openly practicing churches, according to Colonel Craig Collier, the commander of the 3rd Squadron, 89th Cavalry Regiment, 4th Brigade of the 10th Mountain Division. The 450 soldiers of the 3-89 Cav are responsible for the district’s security, in conjunction with thousands of Iraqi Army, Iraqi National Police, Iraqi Police, Kurdish private contractors, and Sons of Iraq (neighborhood watch).
Rusafa contains Baghdad’s largest and most famous markets, including the Shorja, Saria, and Bab al Sharji, some of which were the scenes of high-profile suicide bombings during the sectarian-fueled carnage of 2006-2007. Over the past year, and especially over the past six months, the district has calmed significantly. The predominant remaining threats are Mahdi Army mortar rounds aimed at the International Zone that fall short and suicide vest bombers and car bombs that target the markets and Coalition forces. Less successful suicide attacks occur maybe once a month, while once common highly successful “spectacular attacks” have become much less frequent.
The Iraqi security forces show improvement in Rusafa
Soldiers in the 3-89 Cav attribute improved security to a few main factors. As is the case with Iraqi security forces across the country, leadership is everything. Collier believes that changes in leadership of the Iraqi National Police and Iraqi Army have improved the performance of the Iraqi security forces.
“We have now taken over an area, and because the first of the Surge units left, it’s twice the size it was before, and I have less than half the people, and it’s still working, so far,” said Collier. “And that is in good measure because of the quality of Iraqi security forces. I was here two years ago and I’ve seen a noticeable improvement, and it’s really the hope that this country has, that they’re able to do things on their own. And they are -- they’re doing quite a bit on their own.”
Collier said that there remains variation in operational quality among units, but notes that many are performing well. He also states that logistics remain “the biggest weak point” with the Iraqi security forces, but asserts gradual improvement.
“The Iraqi Army battalion 3/4/1 [3rd Battalion, 4th Brigade, 1st Division], which just transitioned here from Fallujah, is one of the most professional battalions I’ve seen,” said Captain John Thornburg, commander of the 3-89’s Bravo Troop, which is responsible for Joint Security Station (JSS) Babalsheikh in southern Rusafa. “They uphold the [operational and uniform] standard on checkpoints, they’re battle-hardened professionals, and are the future of the Iraqi Army that we’d like to see. They’re proud, professional-looking soldiers, and the people see the difference.”
A Shia Awakening
But Thornburg attributes most of the improvement in his area in southern Rusafa to the Sons of Iraq, the local neighborhood watchmen who are paid by the US. The Sons of Iraq program was started here seven months ago by local leaders and the 82nd Airborne, the unit last responsible for the southwestern half of Rusafa, which is essentially downtown Baghdad. Local Sons of Iraq leaders claim they were “the first Shia Awakening” against militias and al Qaeda.
“The SOI have exceeded expectations. They’ve turned one of the most violent areas of Baghdad into one of the most quiet,” said Thornburg. “Specifically, they are looking for Mahdi Army. They know who comes into their area, they man checkpoints 24 hours a day, they do vehicle searches, they question people and they patrol. The locals trust them and they are happy with them. They’ve earned a lot of wasta [respect] from the citizens, and the results speak for themselves. It’s a real success story.”
The Sons of Iraq in Al Sadria -- a collection of neighborhoods in southwestern Rusafa -- are about 250-strong and primarily Shia. But Faris Abdul Hassan, their leader, refuses to hire individuals with sectarian allegiances. The Americans still write the contracts for the neighborhood watch, pay them, and issue their security instructions, but the government of Iraq is attempting the process of taking control of the program. The transition is contentious and marked by a lack of trust, as exemplified by a heated meeting that took place on Friday at JSS Babalsheikh. A Sons of Iraq leader from the Al Fahdil area angrily yelled at a local Iraqi Police general that “the government has done nothing for my people in five years.”
Hassan and his Al Sadria Sons of Iraq also mistrust the government, specifically asserting that the Iraqi Police are still infiltrated “maybe 50 percent” by the Special Groups. An American officer agrees that there remains some level of Mahdi Army infiltration in the Iraqi Police. The Al Sadria Sons of Iraq have a more favorable opinion of the Iraqi Army, though overall distrust of the government remains an issue that will make integration with Iraqi security forces a difficult, delicate process.
The Mahdi Army is disliked in Rusafa
Above all, Hassan and his neighborhood watchmen do not like the Mahdi Army.
“Originally, the Jaish al Mahdi [Mahdi Army] in our area used to deceive people by using the name of the religion to do their purposes,” said Dhia, Hassan’s executive officer. “They were all corrupted. They have history in crime, robberies, murders, rapes, and all kinds of bad things. They even reached the level of kidnapping people and demanding ransoms just because they have money. It didn’t matter if he is Shia or Sunni; just because he has money. They gave a bad reputation for Islam.”
American officials assert that the final factor that has improved security is the citizenry’s fatigue with violence and the militias.
“They’re still intimidated by [the Mahdi Army], but they’re tired of them,” said Thornburg.
In the past the Mahdi Army commanded local support because of the need for security in a vacuum and intimidation tactics. But as security improved and other forces are gaining prominence, support for the Mahdi militia in Rusafa is evaporating.
“Right now because of the fighting Sadr City, people have started to despise [the Mahdi Army] because of the situation they created,” said “Rammie,” an Army interpreter raised and living in Rusafa. “People have started to know the truth of [the Mahdi Army] as kidnappers, killers, carjackers, and agents of the Iranian government. But the recent fighting against the [Iraqi security forces] means they are also against the government. They are not trying to just fight the invasion forces as they claim, but they fight whoever interferes with their mafia activity.”
Thus far, the fighting just north in Sadr City has not significantly spilled over into Rusafa, but it is affecting the lives of the district’s residents. Mahdi Army militiamen used to egress from the southeast border of Sadr City to fire rockets and mortars at the International Zone, then duck back into the Shia slum, which served almost like a safe zone where no Iraqi or US military units would follow.
Mahdi mortars and rockets fall short in Rusafa
Since the government operation against the Mahdi Army in Basrah began in March, Mahdi fighters began firing mortars and rockets from Sadr City itself, a move that spurred the recent Iraqi Army and US incursion into the poor Shia enclave. A side effect of this new trajectory for indirect fire is that some rounds fall short of their target and land in southwestern Rusafa, killing civilians and destroying property. US personnel assert that this is angering the district’s populace against the militias, and 3-89 Cav soldiers press the issue by immediately passing out leaflets that explain where the artillery came from after an attack.
Businessmen in Rusafa say that the recent deterioration in security directly impacts their businesses, driving up the prices they pay for goods, and causing consumers to save rather than spend. “Whenever there is peace and safety, my business does well,” said a shopkeeper in southeastern Rusafa. “The prices of goods have increased because of the events [in Sadr City].”
When asked what he thought of the Mahdi Army, his voice dropped precipitously and he nervously glanced around before answering: “This is their country, but everywhere you can find someone who will destroy his own country, his own house.”
Opinion has shifted against the militias and is more gradually moving toward supporting the Iraqi security forces. Yet views about Mahdi Army leader Muqtada al Sadr are varied and complex, as characterized by some individuals who despise both his Special Groups foot soldiers and their Iranian paymasters, but avoid placing blame on the cleric himself.
“These guys [the Mahdi Army] are fighting between the houses [among civilians],” said a corporal in the Iraqi Army. “They use the houses as their armor, so that’s why many innocent people are killed, because they shoot mortars between the houses and run away. Iran will pay a lot of money for ignorant people to behave crazy. They claim that they belong to Muqtada al Sadr, but they do not belong to Muqtada, they belong to Iran.”
Others have developed a distaste for the radical cleric. Rammie asserts that “many educated people” know that both the Mahdi Army and Iran are affiliated with Sadr, and that his popularity is waning in Rusafa as a result. “He is in Iran, not even here fighting with his own people,” Rammie said.
“Muqtada is an immature guy,” said Hassan. “He is not mature enough to lead such a militia and I don’t think he even controls or leads the Mahdi Army, he’s being directed by higher people.”
Efforts to stabilize the area continue as surge units draw down and the battle in Sadr City escalates. Some American officials believe that the Iraqi government’s confrontation with the militia is giving the Iraqi Army momentum and further shifting public opinion.
“We are so close to establishing a fully legitimized ISF [Iraqi Security Forces] structure,” said Captain Nathan Hubbard, the commander of the 3-83 Cav’s Alpha Troop, which is responsible for a Joint Security Station in the Al Fahdil area of Rusafa. “I would say that with the successful conclusion of Basrah and the continuation of [the offensive in] Sadr City -- the closing off of the criminal elements down there -- you’ll see a significant swing in public belief in the ISF. More [Iraqis] would buy into ISF being a legit force. Right now, the citizens are maybe 40 percent pro-government, 40 percent on the fence, and some seriously anti-ISF guys on the side. The people want a force that is willing to go after any terrorists, including AQI [al Qaeda in Iraq], Mahdi Army, the PKK [the Kurdistan Workers’ Party]. They just like to see the government doing something.”
April saw 49 U.S. casualties in Iraq, the highest total in seven months. Does this mean, as some insist, that the enormous progress we have made since the start of the military surge is being lost?
As one who has spent nearly two years with American soldiers and Marines and British Army troops in Iraq - having returned from my last trip a month ago - here's my short answer: no.
We are taking more casualties now, just as we did in the first part of 2007, because we have taken up the next crucial challenge of this war: confronting the Shia militias.
In early 2007, under the leadership of Gen. David Petraeus, we began to wage an effective counterinsurgency campaign against the reign of terror Al Qaeda in Iraq had established over much of the midsection of the country. That campaign, which moved many of our troops off of big centralized bases and out into small neighborhood outposts, carried real risks.
In every one of the first eight months of 2007, we lost more soldiers than we had the previous year. Only as the campaign bore fruit - in the form of Iraqi citizens working with American soldiers on a daily basis, helping uncover terrorist hideouts together - did the casualty numbers begin to improve.
Now we are helping the Iraqis deal with a much different problem: the Shia militias, the most well-known of which is "Jaysh al-Mahdi," known as JAM, largely controlled by Moqtada al-Sadr.
To comprehend our strategy here, we need to understand the goals of these militias, which pundits, politicians and the press all too often gloss over. Al Qaeda's aim was to destroy Iraq in civil war. Allegedly devout Muslims, the terrorist savages were willing to rape, murder and pillage their own people just as long as they could catch America in the middle. One reason Al Qaeda in Iraq can regenerate so quickly, despite being hated by most Iraqis, is that, armed with generous funding from outside Iraq, they mostly recruit young men and boys from Iraqi street gangs, giving them money, guns and drugs.
In contrast, JAM and the other Shia militias do not want to destroy Iraq; they want power in the new Iraq. They did not, for the most part, start out as criminal gangs, but as self-defense organizations protecting Shia neighborhoods from the chaos of post-invasion Iraq, including Al Qaeda.
Because the militias are strong, well-organized and long had deep support among the population, and because their goal is political power, not random destruction, some have argued that we should have nothing to do with taking them on. They predict a bloody and futile campaign that would make us once again enemies of the Iraqi people rather than their defenders.
These critics miss a crucial on-the-ground reality: Virtually all insurgencies, however noble their original purpose, eventually degenerate into criminal organizations, classic Mafia-like protection rackets, especially as they achieve their original goals.
With Al Qaeda mostly wiped out of Baghdad, the militias that once defended Shia neighborhoods now prey on them. In Basra to the south, where al Qaeda always feared to tread, the situation is even worse. Practically speaking, that city has been ruled by an uneasy coalition of rival Shia gangs for years.
The great victory of the past year and a half has been the decision of Sunni citizens to turn against Sunni outlaws. Now, neither we nor the Iraqi government can maintain our credibility with the Sunni if the Shia militias are allowed to remain outside the law.
The militias, unlike Al Qaeda, are not insane; we can negotiate with them. But we and the Iraqi government can only capitalize on the shifting sentiments of the Shia neighborhoods if we first demonstrate that we and the government - not the gangs - control the streets.
That means, for the next few months, expect more blood, casualties and grim images of war. This may lead to a shift in the political debate inside the United States and more calls for rapid withdrawal. But on the ground in Iraq, it's a sign of progress.
Clashes between the Mahdi Army and US and Iraqi forces continued in Baghdad over the weekend as efforts to complete the security barriers separating the southern portion of Sadr City from the Mahdi Army-controlled north. The US military has moved another battalion of Strykers into the Sadr City. In the South, Iraqi troops cleared another militia-controlled neighborhood in Basrah.
Baghdad battles
US and Iraqi forces have killed 18 Mahdi Army fighters in Sadr City and New Baghdad since the afternoon of May 3. Nine Mahdi Army fighters were killed in Sadr City and northern and eastern Baghdad during the nighttime and early morning hours of May 4-5 after attacking US forces, planting roadside bombs, or preparing to launch mortars and rockets.
US soldiers killed four more Mahdi Army fighters in the eastern district of New Baghdad after coming under attack on May 4. And US troops killed five more Mahdi Army fighters in Sadr City as they attempted to stop the barrier from being built late May 3 and early May 4. No US soldiers were reported killed in any of the incidents.
US and Iraqi forces have inflicted heavy casualties on the Mahdi Army in Sadr City and surrounding neighborhoods since the fighting broke out in Baghdad on March 25. According to US and Iraqi reports compiled by The Long War Journal, 502 Mahdi Army fighters have been killed in and around Sadr City. These numbers do not include Mahdi Army fighters who may have died after being wounded in the fighting.
With heavy fighting inside Sadr City, the US military is beefing up its forces in the area. Multinational Forces Iraq has moved an additional battalion to the Sadr City region over the past several days. The 1st Battalion, 27th Infantry Regiment of the 2nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division has moved from northwestern Baghdad province into the Sadr City area over the past week. This is the ninth US battalion known to be operating inside Sadr City. Two Iraqi Army brigades and a National Police brigade are also operating inside Sadr City.
Raids on the Iranian-backed Special Groups
US and Iraqi special forces teams have renewed their raids against the Special Groups, the Iranian-backed elements of the Mahdi Army. Ten Special Groups leaders and operatives have been captured during raids in Baghdad and Hillah since May 2.
On May 4, Coalition special forces captured two Special Groups operatives, including the main target, in the Rashid district in Baghdad. The main target was a commander who was "wanted for facilitating the import of Iranian-made munitions into Iraq" as well as directing mortar and rocket attacks and operating safe houses for his operatives.
Iraqi special forces conducted two raids -- one in Hillah and one in Baghdad -- on May 2. The Hillah Special Weapons and Tactics team captured two men "charged with conducting a series of attacks against a Coalition forces base with indirect fire weapons." Four associates were also captured during the raids.
Iraqi Special Operations Forces captured a "mid-level Special Groups leader" and an associate during a raid in Baghdad on May 2. The Special Groups leader led a 50-man company that conducted mortar and rocket attacks against Iraqi and Coalition forces. The commander also directed kidnappings and murders.
Iraqi troops clear another neighborhood in Basrah
As operations against the Mahdi Army continue in Baghdad, Iraqi security forces press the offensive in Basrah. Soldiers from Quick Reaction Force 1 cleared the Mahdi Army-controlled neighborhood of Al Latif.
"The clearing of Al Latif resulted in several cache discoveries, including dozens of automatic weapons, mortars and improvised explosive devices," Multinational Forces Iraq reported in a press release. "The QRF 1 also detained several criminals, and raided and demolished the residence of a known IED maker and militia leader."
Al Latif is the fifth Mahdi Army-controlled neighborhood cleared in Basrah since Operation Knights' Assault was launched on March 25. Iraqi security forces have cleared the Al Huteen, Hayaniyah, Taymiyyah, and Qiblah neighborhoods over the past several weeks.
Quick Reaction Force 1 is the new designation for the 1st Iraqi Army Division, the most experienced unit in the Iraqi military. This unit deployed from Anbar province at the opening days of the Basrah operation to assist in the offensive.
Mohamed Hussein is an Iraqi employee of The New York Times in Baghdad. He left Iraq on New Year’s Day in 2007 to escape the sectarian violence from Shiite militias and Sunni insurgents who were both active in his mixed neighborhood. He returned last week, after 15 months out of Iraq. The name of his neighborhood has been withheld, because he is still afraid.
BAGHDAD — I came back to Baghdad last week.
First, it is important to mention the main cause that made me leave everything behind and go to Syria. By the end of 2006 my neighborhood had become an unbearable place. No one could continue there. It was without any simple services, from bakery shops to the hospital and physicians. They all closed their doors and left.
But the real cause is something hidden inside me that affected me more. One day while driving my car to work I saw a corpse thrown alongside the road, and for next three days no one could remove or even touch it. If you moved it you would face the same fate.
So I was gazing at that corpse twice a day for the next three days. That made me think about the whole situation and I said: “It is possible there will be a day when I will be the next corpse laid on that road.”
The other more important cause that made me leave was that it seemed like someone had started a campaign to assassinate everyone living in my area, no matter from which side -Sunni or Shiite - as they just needed numbers of people who had to be killed.
In Syria I did not really get any rest because although my wife and children came with me, my parents stayed behind. They were alone and they are both aged people, so they did not think anyone would target them. But what could I do for them either staying in Syria with all that agony inside me, or returning back and paying with my life as the price of that compassion?
After spending more than a year in Syria one day my father called me saying: “You can now return, and do not worry. Everything is fine now.” I felt happy for them and for me, but only for a moment.
Later, that feeling began to become a mixture of happiness and wariness. I wanted to return, but at the same time I hesitated. I wanted to know if the situation there was as people said, or if they just exaggerated.
During my travel from Syria to Baghdad I was completely relaxed. There were no worries, no fear of looters and terrorists with Al Qaeda, or Ansar al-Sunna (Protectors of the Sunni), Jaish al-Mohammed (Army of Mohammed) who used to control everything on the expressway between Syria and Baghdad.
Then when we stopped to get some rest near a big restaurant called Bilaad ash-Sham I saw many Iraqi and Syrian buses filled with travelers, and many four-wheel-drive vehicles.
They told me that everything was going fine and that stories that I had heard about the security situation in some Baghdad districts were right.
I reached Baghdad at 6 a.m. The driver dropped me in the Mansour district. My mother was waiting for me there. Sometimes when I was calling her I could not keep back my tears. She always makes me feel like a young child, which is something I like. It covers me with kindness and warmth. She can read my thoughts and feels what’s inside me.
I put my luggage inside my mother’s car and we drove to my neighborhood. While driving I was amazed to see what I had heard about: the huge difference in security, which was much better than when I left.
My mother said: “Drive normally and just slow down when you are near a checkpoint.”
It was a really strange feeling to see my neighborhood again. In some ways it was the same, in others different. The main road had become ugly because there are now many damaged buildings and shops, and I noticed the marks of bullets and shrapnel everywhere around.
At the end of the journey when we reached the main entrance of my neighborhood my mother told me “Just slow down and say ‘Asalaam alaikum,’ (Peace be with you). Do not tell them you were in Syria.” She was afraid they would think I was a wanted man who had run away.
At that moment everything I had heard before seemed not right and I became more anxious with each meter I came closer to the checkpoint. Then I turned my head to the left and I saw the biggest cement wall I have ever seen, which encircles my neighborhood.
There were two Iraqi soldiers standing at the checkpoint. One of them stopped me and told me to open the trunk and engine. The other smiled, saying: “It is the day of bombed cars.”
He inspected my car with an explosive detector device. The other was just looking at us and it seemed that he recognized my mother’s face because he said: “Hi, auntie.”
Now I felt really safe because those people were working properly, not like the security forces in my neighborhood before who were making a secure path during the night for militia members to pass through, targeting everything there.
I think that the Iraqi police and army are working in the right way because there is an American military center inside my neighborhood. But all the people I met said that if the Americans left, those militias would eat our flesh without mercy.
I spent my first night without hearing any kind of shooting and mortar bombing, not like a year earlier when my daughter was asking me about all the sounds around and I was telling her, “Do not panic, baby, that is fireworks.”
This morning I heard the man who sells cooking gas knocking on the cylinders shouting “gaz, gaz, gaz ” which is something that had not happened for two years in my neighborhood.
This meant that all the things I heard about the improvements are true. Even the people are more friendly and I can say that there is now a kind of mutual trust between the people and the soldiers, not like before when there was no trust between each other.
Now, maybe if we think deeply about it, we will find that each needs the other. People need the soldiers to secure them. At the same time the U.S. troops are now in a safe place, maybe they can have more than one Green Zone. Will it stay safe or not?
I guess that all depends on the American troops, since we will not have qualified Iraqi forces soon. Although most Iraqi forces are sincere you find some have been infiltrated by groups of gunmen and sectarian people who made the mess all around us.
So we still need the Americans because if they intend to leave, there will be something like a hurricane which will extract everything - people, buildings and even trees. Everything that has happened and all that safety will be past, just like a sweet dream.
As people say in my neighborhood: “The Americans are now Ansar al Sunna.” Protectors of the Sunni.
Less than one week after pushing into the northern two-thirds of Sadr City from the walled southern neighborhoods, the Iraqi Army is uncovering substantial weapons caches in the Mahdi Army stronghold. Iraqi and Coalition forces continue to press against the Mahdi Army in Baghdad as the New Baghdad district begins to heat up.
The Iraqi Army raided numerous Mahdi Army weapons caches in Sadr City May 22-23, Multinational Forces Iraq reported. The Mahdi Army has stockpiled weapons throughout the district. Eight of the armor-piercing, Iranian-made explosively formed projectiles have been found along with chlorine poison, eight roadside bombs, and large quantities of explosives, weapons, ammunition, and materials used to make bombs.
Iraqi troops raided a school in Sadr City on May 23 and uncovered a substantial weapons cache. "Two bottles of chlorine poison" were found along with a remote-controlled improvised explosive device, six 155 mm artillery rounds, an artillery warhead, five grenades, two PKC light machine guns and 450 rounds of PKC ammunition, a Katusha rocket launcher, and radios used to remotely detonate roadside bombs.
The largest cache was found by Iraqi soldiers on May 22. The cache consisted of "one explosively formed projectile; one homemade mine; more than 2000 7.62 mm rounds; 393 5.56 mm rounds; one 80 mm rocket-propelled grenade; RPG launchers, warheads and tails; one cannon ball; grenades; spools of wire; blasting caps; AK- 47 rifles; AK-47 and M-16 magazines; two body armor vests; a Kevlar helmet; two radios; and other assorted military equipment."
Another significant cache seized by Iraqi troops on May 22 contained "seven explosively formed projectiles, five 60 mm mortar rounds, more than a dozen RPGs, hand grenades, a mortar sight, a BKC machine gun and 1,200 BKC rounds, a Kalashnikov rifle and five Kalashnikov magazines, igniters, indicators, command wire, charges, detonators, eight radios and four battery chargers." A host of smaller caches were found and destroyed.
There has been no fighting reported in Sadr City over the past several days as the Iraqi Army takes up positions in strategic areas around Sadr City. On May 23, the Sadrist movement claimed the Iraqi Army was violating the truce and assaulting and mistreating Iraqis during clearing operations in Sadr City. The Associated Press repeated the claims of Mohannad al Gharawi, who is portrayed as a neutral person sent to Sadr City to monitor the truce. But Gharawi is in fact a senior member of the Sadrist movement.
Raids continue outside Sadr City
As the Iraqi security forces continue to work to secure Sadr City, US and Iraqi forces are pressuring the Mahdi Army in greater Baghdad and beyond. The Sadrist movement has accused the Iraqi military of rounding up more than 400 people during raids in the Amil and Bayaa neighborhoods in southwestern Baghdad.
Brigadier General Qassim Atta confirmed operations were conducted in these neighborhoods but did not indicate how many were detained. The Iraqi Army "arrested wanted suspects and seized several caches of arms and explosives," Atta said.
Other operations and raids have been carried out in Baghdad over the past several days. Iraqi National Police detained four Mahdi Army fighters in New Baghdad on May 22 and uncovered a weapons cache. A brother of one of the detainees possessed an Iranian passport. On May 23, US troops killed five Mahdi Army fighters in the Shawra area of New Baghdad.
Multiple Mahdi Army weapons caches have been found outside of Sadr City, many of which included Iranian-made weapons. Iraqi troops found four explosively formed projectiles in a large weapons cache in the Bayaa area of the Rashid district on May 22. US troops found another EFP along with RPGs and other weapons the Diyala area of New Baghdad on May 23.
US troops found a large cache that contained "approximately 30 60 mm Iranian mortars with a manufacturing date of 2007," and other mortars, tubes and bomb-making materials in the Kadamiyah district on May 23. On May 24, US soldiers found an Iranian-made 107 mm rocket in a cache that included 180 mortar rounds.
Outside of Baghdad, US and Iraqi troops captured five Mahdi Army operatives in separate operations. Iraqi Special Operations Forces captured a Special Groups financier and weapons smuggler in Az Zubayr, just north of Basrah on May 21. The operative smuggled weapons from Iran into Iraq.
Coalition Special Operations Forces captured four Special Groups operatives in Rashadiyah on May 23. The target was a "Special Groups weapons smuggler accused of bringing explosively-formed penetrators, rockets and other weapons into Diyala Province from Iran" who was also "responsible for multiple attacks on Iraqi Security and Coalition forces using EFPs, rocket-propelled grenades and sniper fire in the Husayniyah area."
Iraqis Losing Patience with Militiamen Muqtada Sadr's Mahdi Army militia has provided services and protection to residents, but fighting in recent weeks has endangered their lives. By Tina Susman and Usama Redha http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-mahdi27-2008may27,0,5360368,full.story
Four summers ago, when militiamen loyal to hard-line Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada Sadr were battling U.S. forces in the holy city of Najaf, Mohammed Lami was among them.
"I had faith. I believed in something," Lami said of his days hoisting a gun for Sadr's Mahdi Army militia. "Now, I will never fight with them."
Lami is no fan of U.S. troops, but after fleeing Baghdad's Sadr City district with his family last month, when militiamen arrived on his street to plant a bomb, he is no fan of the Mahdi Army either. Nor are many others living in Sadr City, the 32-year-old said. Weeks of fighting between militiamen and Iraqi and U.S. forces, with residents caught in the middle, has chipped away at the Sadr movement's grass-roots popularity, Lami said.
More than 1,000 people have died in Sadr City since fighting erupted in late March, and hospital and police officials say most have been civilians. As the violence continues, public tolerance for the Mahdi Army, and by association the Sadr movement, seems to be shifting toward the same sort of resentment once reserved for U.S. and Iraqi forces.
"People are fed up with them because of their extremism and the problems they are causing," said Rafid Majid, a merchant in central Baghdad. Like many others interviewed across the capital, he said the good deeds the group performs no longer were enough to make up for the hardships endured by ordinary Iraqis who just want to go to work and keep their families safe.
With provincial elections scheduled for October, a public perception that Sadr loyalists were to blame for the violence could hinder the cleric's hopes of broadening his power and influence in the oil-rich south. It also could extend the violent power struggle between the Mahdi Army and the rival Badr Organization tied to Prime Minister Nouri Maliki -- a conflict that has played out from the southern city of Basra to Baghdad's Shiite neighborhoods.
Lawmakers from Sadr's movement blame the United States and Iraqi forces for the bloodshed that began after the government launched an offensive against Shiite militias in Basra. Sadr representatives insist that, if anything, support has soared as people come to sympathize with the Sadr loyalists.
"Even some Iraqi people who were not sympathizing with us before have now started to feel and identify with the oppression on the Sadr people. It has become clear to them that we are being targeted," said Liqa Yaseen, a parliament member representing the Sadr movement.
But interviews with dozens of Iraqis living in Sadr City and other Shiite militia strongholds in Baghdad suggest otherwise. So do anecdotes from U.S. troops who have met with Sadr City residents and local leaders and who say there has been a shift in the things they hear.
"After March 25 was the first time I had anyone tell us, 'Go in and wipe them out,' " said Sgt. Erik Olson, who spends most of his time visiting residents of Sadr City's Jamila neighborhood gathering "atmospherics," the military's word for figuring out what locals are thinking.
It isn't surprising that people on the front lines of the standoff would lose patience with the warring sides. Their homes and streets have become battlegrounds, making it impossible at times to go to the market, the hospital or work. Military and militia snipers fire from rooftops. Militiamen launch mortar shells and rockets from residential streets. U.S. aircraft respond with devastating airstrikes that often cause casualties and damage beyond their targets.
It's a public relations problem that even some Mahdi Army members acknowledge, and a fragile truce reached by Sadr and the Iraqi government this month, which allowed Iraqi troops to deploy into Sadr City, suggested that at least privately, Sadr's political wing recognized the need to back down from the fighting.
Thousands of Iraqi security forces took up positions in Sadr City starting May 20 and faced no resistance from militiamen.
Ahmed, a 29-year-old Mahdi Army member who did not want his full name used for fear of being arrested or attacked, said the group was the only "honorable resistance" to the U.S. presence. He said people in poor neighborhoods depended on it for handouts of fuel, help with funeral costs, and food distribution. But he acknowledged that as fighting continued, support dwindled.
"Of course some people are expressing their resentment and anger against the Mahdi Army, thinking that without them, they would not be targeted and their lives would not be badly affected," he said.
Another Mahdi Army member expressed anger after Sadr in late April warned of "open war" against U.S. forces if operations targeting Sadr strongholds did not stop.
"Did he mention that the 'open war' . . . will be among the houses or residential areas?" said the man, a Mahdi Army street leader who feared having his name published. "Fight? . . . I will not join the fight."
Some members blame the violence on rogue elements who have ignored truces called by Sadr, but they acknowledge that regardless of whoever is behind the fighting, the mainstream Sadr movement is viewed as the violator. "It takes all the blame for the fight because it started it," said Abu Ali, a Sadr City resident who said he had left the Mahdi Army after becoming disillusioned with its tactics fighting U.S. forces in crowded urban areas.
"We should fight them outside the cities, not among the families," Abu Ali said.
For years, Sadr's militia has been welcomed by many people in exchange for the services the cleric provides. Most important has been the security his fighters offer: Even people who don't relish having masked gunmen on their streets have accepted them in exchange for safety.
But with the recent fighting, that security is gone.
"I don't support them now, but in the past I did," Mohammed Mousawi, a 23-year-old civil servant, said of the Mahdi Army. "They served people a lot and solved problems in the area, but now things are different."
Mousawi said he had to pay 24,000 Iraqi dinars [about $20] a month to the militia to protect a small shop he runs and his home in Hurriya, a Baghdad neighborhood known for its militia presence. When the streets were quiet, he was willing to do so. Now, he resents it.
Hassan abu Mohammed, who has an appliance repair shop in Jamila, said the violence forced him to close his business for nearly two months. Abu Mohammed estimated that he was losing $1,200 a month but said it was worth it if the militiamen could be driven out.
"They used to come and take money on a monthly basis from us," he said, speaking for himself and other local merchants. He said the militiamen would demand to know the details of their businesses, whether their customers were Sunnis, Shiites or Americans, and whom they employed.
Shopkeepers, teachers and homemakers interviewed across Baghdad told similar stories and indicated that goodwill toward the militia was evaporating.
"The people do not support [them] anymore because they are responsible for barricading some areas and preventing people from going on with their lives and jobs," said Ibrahim Ghanim, a merchant in central Baghdad.
Allegations of extortion and abductions are not new, but U.S. military officials say such complaints have picked up. They say Sadr's truce with U.S. forces in August has led to splintering in the organization. Questions about which way Sadr will go, toward sustaining the truce or halting it, have fueled more Mafia-like behavior among his followers as they jockey for power and resources in the face of an uncertain future.
"Everyone is trying to claw their way to the top," said Olson, comparing it to Robin Hood turning into Tony Soprano.
Regardless of whether the Sadr movement agrees that it may have lost some support recently, it clearly was trying to curry favor with the public as the Iraqi army moved into Sadr City.
"There's no problem with the Iraqi forces' operations today," spokesman Saleh Obeidi said, "as long as these forces are taking care of the civilians' rights there."
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