Mahdi Army Says “Thank You for Helping…
…we truly couldn’t have done it without you.”
Read this article by Tom Lasseter at Real Cities. It is highly depressing.
The infiltration by al-Sadr’s men, coupled with his strength in Iraq’s parliament after U.S.-backed elections, gave him leeway to operate death squads throughout the capital, according to more than a week of interviews with American soldiers patrolling Baghdad. Some U.S.-trained units carried out sectarian killings themselves, while others, manning checkpoints, allowed militiamen to pass.
[...]
U.S. Army commanders and enlisted men who are patrolling east Baghdad, which is home to more than half the city’s population and the front line of al-Sadr’s campaign to drive rival Sunni Muslims from their homes and neighborhoods, said al-Sadr’s militias had heavily infiltrated the Iraqi police and army units that they’ve trained and armed.“Half of them are JAM. They’ll wave at us during the day and shoot at us during the night,” said 1st Lt. Dan Quinn, a platoon leader in the Army’s 1st Infantry Division, using the initials of the militia’s Arabic name, Jaish al Mahdi. “People (in America) think it’s bad, but that we control the city. That’s not the way it is. They control it, and they let us drive around. It’s hostile territory.”
[...]
“All the Shiites have to do is tell everyone to lay low, wait for the Americans to leave, then when they leave you have a target list and within a day they’ll kill every Sunni leader in the country. It’ll be called the `Day of Death’ or something like that,” said 1st Lt. Alain Etienne, 34, of Brooklyn, N.Y. “They say, `Wait, and we will be victorious.’ That’s what they preach. And it will be their victory.”
[...]
“Honestly, within six months of us leaving, the way Iranian clerics run the country behind the scenes, it’ll be the same way here with Sadr,” said Quinn, 25, of Cleveland. “He already runs our side of the river.”
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One of the men, who said his name was Abbas al Dulaimi, asked, “When the Mahdi Army comes here, why does the Iraqi army help them shoot people?”“I was behind a car at the checkpoint on the bridge. I saw an Iraqi army soldier open the trunk,” said another man, who gave only his first name, Ahmed. “There were two men in there. The driver showed the soldier his Mahdi Army ID, and the soldier saluted him and let him drive away.”
If Lasseter’s article is accurate – and I don’t see any reason to believe it’s not – can this battle ever be won?
I really do not see a way out. If the post-war plan would have been any good, this could have been prevented, but now, so long after the start of the Iraq War, everything Bush et al. plan on doing is – as I see it – too little, too late.
Bryan at Hot Air responds. His reaction has to be read in full, but here’s an excerpt:
In the interests of braking the panic that this story is creating a little bit, the troops at FOB Justice were candid with Michelle and I about the state of the Iraqi security forces. Are they “filthy with JAM?� In the case of the police, yes. In the case of the army, less so. That’s one of several reasons that the IA tends to be more effective and more trusted on the street than the police. The US troops on FOB Justice share their base with both Iraqi Army and police, both of which they are training, so they are in a position to know about the infiltration and to be aware of what can be done about it.
Kevin Drum wonders:
You know, everything I’ve heard suggests that Gen. David Petraeus is a terrific officer in all respects. And yet, there’s something that’s been niggling in the back of my mind for a while: namely that in August 2004, when al-Sadr was hatching this plan, Petraeus was the guy in charge of creating and overseeing the training program for the Iraqi army and police. In other words, he was the guy who was being suckered. Now he’s in charge of the whole operation. Is anybody else bothered by this?
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5 Responses to “Mahdi Army Says “Thank You for Helping…”
You left out an important part:
“Etienne was on patrol one day when he saw Iraqi soldiers eating fresh vegetables and meat. The afternoon before, the same soldiers had complained that they had only scraps of food left. Who’d brought them their meal? It had come courtesy of Muqtada al-Sadr.”
Wonder why al-Sadr has a solid backbone in the troops? Why, they simply follow who’s feeding them. And remember those 2003 reports about Saddam’s army being undernourished, at the edge of starving? Nothing has changed under US influence. This is beyond pathetic. Who is responsible inside the Pentagon for this massive screw-up and incredible show of incompetence?
Yes Gray good quote. Good of you to point that out.
Lets face it: this war has been lost in every possible respect.
“So while Iraq’s other main Shiite militia, the Badr Brigade, concentrated in 2005 on packing Iraqi intelligence bureaus with high-level officers who could coordinate sectarian assassinations, al-Sadr went after the rank and file.”
Badr is the militia of the largest party and is closest to Iran, so even if we take out al-Sadr through military force, we still have a hostile secret police. I read a report that estimated Badr Brigade was responsible for most of the sectarian killing before the Golden Dome bombing — they were just better at staying out of the news.
Michael, Lt General William Odom, who recently gave testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, would beg to differ. At the hearing he said the following:
‘Many critics argue that, had the invasion been done ‘right,’ such as sending in much larger forces for re-establishing security and government services, the war would have been a success. This argument is not convincing. Such actions might have delayed a civil war but could not have prevented it’.
His point is the invasion itself made civil war inevitable and nothing American troops can do now will change this reality. Our continued presence, he goes on to say, has paralyzed the US militarily and strategically.
If this really is the case, which it seems it is, the way forwards seems clear, if difficult. We must arrest al-Sadr. It would be a divcieve move which would bring his supporters out of the woodwork so to speak. It would certainly add a considerable ammount of time that we would need to stay in Iraq to clean up the mess, and probably bring about a large ammount of international outrage, but if we really wish to bring a US friendly regieme to Iraq it has to be done.
Otherwise, we might as well give up and let Iran and Saudi Arabia/Egypt fight over the country.