Category: Iraq

Iraqis fire surface-to-air missile at chopper over Sadr City – On Deadline – USATODAY.com

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The cease fire in Sadr City appears to be holding for the moment in Baghdad, though if I were a US military man, I would be rather concerned at the report that someone, probably a Mahdi Army member, fired a surface-to-air missile at at a helicopter before things settled down.

This was likely not a lone combatant making this decision. This was likely a conscious decision made as a warning to the US that the militias have resources that could mean that air operations over the Baghdad slum will no longer be quite so easy.

For some context, I would suggest that this article from Think Progress goes a long way towards explaining Muqtada al-Sadr’s popularity. Money quote:

One of the central elements of the elder Sadr’s program (and now of Muqtada’s) was a distinction between the “silent clerics” (represented by Sistani and the Najaf establishment) — bookish sorts who stay remote from the lives of their people — and the “speaking clerics” who take part in the suffering and struggle of the Shia, as Sadeq did. And here the “silent clerics” once again stayed silent while Shia were crushed in Sadr City, of all places, while medical care, food, and shelter are being doled out in Muqtada’s name. It doesn’t require any math to see that Sadr benefits politically from this.

Bush is Batsh$@ Insane

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In an otherwise unremittingly negative review of retired general Ricardo Sanchez’s book detailing his experiences in (mis)managing the Iraq war, Washington Post columnist William Arkin of, we find this rather remarkable quote from the general’s book: “

Today in the San Antonio Express-News, Sanchez blames everyone else for what happened during his 14 months in Iraq and says he experienced ‘confused’ pep talks from President Bush. ‘Kick ass!’ Bush is said to have said in the video-teleconference during the battle of Fallujah in 2004. ‘If somebody tries to stop the march to democracy, we will seek them out and kill them! We must be tougher than hell!’

(emphasis mine)

While I agree that Sanchez’s tenure in Iraq deserves nothing but disdain, he, along with Paul Bremer are the two people most responsible for US missteps, I think that he misses the importance of this quote.

The importance is not that Sanchez blames someone else. It’s that what George W. Bush said is are indicators clearly, and deeply, disturbed mind. I’m not talking Pat Buchanan crazy here. I’m talking really, literally insane.

GW Bush’s finger is on the button, and I think that we are seeing someone who is suffering from some severe psychosis, the sort that would normally require compulsory medication, and possibly detention, and Arkin misses it because he, with much justification, hates Sanchez so much.

Cease Fire in Sadr City

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There appears to be a tentative cease fire in Sadr City:

Under the terms of the agreement, Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki’s government would gain control over Sadr City, now a largely lawless area, and in turn give members of Mr. Sadr’s militia who were not actively involved in the fighting a guarantee that they would not be arrested.

I’m not sure that Maliki will have any meaningful control thouhg, though rockets into the Green Zone are likely to decrease, but this was shaping up to be a disaster for Maliki as well as Sadr:

The Iraqi government has done little to ease the crisis and allow medical and other aid to reach people. There has been almost no effort to repair the shattered neighborhood, where burned-out cars and piles of bricks from bomb-damaged houses are common sights.

If this had gone to a full offensive, we would have seen massive artillery and air strikes, and the neither Iraqi government nor the US military had resources available to handle the 100 thousand or so refugees who would have been created, which would have been politically disasterous for Dawa and ISCI.

Note that once again Iran had to take the lead in mediating this. Our military presence bolsters Iran’s regional ambitions.

Iraq Plans to Go “Apocalypse Now” Out in Sadr City

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They are ordering civilians to leave, and they are preparing tent cities in soccer stadiums. I think that they intend to go Fallujah on Sadr City, where somewhere around half the buildings were destroyed.

The problem is that neither the US military nor the Iraqi government can take care of the thousands of people who will be displaced by this.

Nouri al-Maliki must be desperate to get rid of the Sadrists before the provincial elections.

Borzou Daragahi and Raheem Salman are F&^%ing Morons

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And so are the US diplomats that they interviewed, because they find it somehow culturally alien that an envelope of cash won’t make everything better with regards to the Blackwater massacre in Baghdad.

As Spencer Ackerman so eloquently states:

If an unaccountable band of politically-connected soldiers-of-fortune shot my mother as she was trying to flee from a traffic circle, and the State Department offered me $5,000 in order to make the incident go away, I would not only be angry, I would be exploring my options for revenge. You don’t have to be an Iraqi to understand this.

If this happened in America, you would have family members demanding the death penalty

$5000 and a meaningless apology does not mean anything them, and it does not mean anything to us.

We are treating them like easily bought off sub humans, and they have legitimate cause to take exception.

The problem is that some of the soldiers in Iraq will die for what the mercenaries did in Iraq.

Iraq, with an Iran Provocation Extra

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4 Marines died today, and Hiro Ibrahim Ahmed, the wife of President Jalal Talabani was the target of an assassination attempt, a roadside bomb targeting her as she went to cultural festival.

Note that this was in Baghdad, not Kurdistan.

I would also point to this story describing a pretty massive buildup at the Al Kut air base, which is just 35 miles from the Iranian border.

I can’t see this as anything but a deliberate provocation, or a prelude to an attack on Iran.

I think that Bush may attack Iran out of a petulant need to leave something else on his successor’s plate.

Iraq as Evidence of Basic Doctrinal Failings of the US Military

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So, we had an incident in the past couple of days in Sadr City, according to the western press, at least the New York Times, we had:

The ugly daily fight for ground in the poor Shiite neighborhood of Sadr City unfolded Saturday at a small mosque next door to a hospital, damaging the hospital and a number of its ambulances, and near a group of children who were wounded as they gathered tin cans to sell for salvage.

So, according to US military reports, dutifully reported by the Times, we have bombed a Mosque and damaged a hospital in the process, and that’s the best spin that they can put on this.

Compare this to the foreign coverage, though:

Twenty patients and workers in al-Sadr Hospital were wounded and 49 civilian and ambulance vehicles were damaged when U.S. warplanes opened fire at the hospital on Saturday, a health official said.

Even with the best possible spin, we have an atrocity (whether it’s a violation of the law of war is another matter). We bombed a mosque, a house of worship, and we did so with so many, or such large, munitions that we damaged the hospital next door, and somehow this will lead us to win this war?

Since WWII, the US military has had a fetish about applying air power to win wars.

  • The attempts by strategic bombing to destroy the German and Japanese war industries failed.
  • Air power in Viet Nam did not achieve its goals, and in fact aided recruiting among the DC and squelched dissent against the North Vietnamese government.
  • In desert storm, we discovered that numbers of tanks destroyed through air power were overstated.
  • Air power was unsuccessful in eliminating Serbian armor in the Kosovo campaign.

And now, in the campaign in Iraq, we are again relying on air power in ways that will, in the long run, cost more American lives, by moving the populace to supporting our opponents.

Iraq as Performance Art

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Well, it looks like Maliki is promising to disarm all militia forces, using the Iraqi and US armies if possible, in order to put an end to criminality and ethnic cleansing.

Maliki is a leader of a militia force that has been leinked to criminality and ethnic cleansing, and his closest ally, the ISCI, formerly SCIRI, is known to have performed the bulk of the ethnic cleansing.

Is it just me, or does this begin to sound like the role playing game “Paranoia”?

In any case, in response to Maliki’s challenge, someone murdered the nephew of Iraqi interior ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf’s, and hung his hang body from electric pole.

All things considered I never want to see the Iraqi version of the Ashton Kutcher’s MTV program Punk’d.

It appears however, that the residents of Sadr City would not be fans of an Iraqi Kutcher, as the death toll in April is near 1000.

They Want to Execute Him Because it Would Be Embarrassing for Him to Die of Natural Causes in Prison

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That is really the crux of this trial, and his lawyers have been refused adequate security.

He is on trial for the execution of food merchants for price gouging in 1992, when he was foreign minister.

He turned himself into the American military in 2003, and has since been held without trial, so they want him tried before he dies in custody.

One of the lessons of all this is just how much the US government is willingly subverting the principals of Nuremberg in order to achieve politically expedient results.

IDF Ramps Up Ground Forces Training

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This increase in focus in training ground forces, which accompanies an increase in the status of ground forces is not surprising.

The conclusion of the Winograd report*, which reviewed the 2006 Lebanon campaign was quite clear:

The military has abandoned the doctrine that stressed precision stand-off firepower over maneuver warfare, arguably the biggest mistake Israel made in the conflict.

It should be noted that the doctrine that they are abandoning is the central doctrine of the US military, particularly the USAF, and it is why you are seeing changes as a result of the experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In fact, when one looks at the failures of the US military, at their core have been a consistent over-reliance on air power, whether USAF fast jets or slower helicopters.

*Warning, the format is some sort of mutant flash called NTXbook.

Iraq

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The major Sunni parties have agreed in principle to rejoin the Iraqi government, and Moktada al-Sadr has called on his supporters to “to wage open war against the Americans” but forbade them from “raising a hand against another Iraqi citizen.”

I’m not sure how this will all play out.

Since it’s Iraq and Maliki, both of whom have never failed to disappoint, I think that any concessions on the part of ISCI and Dawa would be primarily as a a part of a deliberate strategy to isolate Sadr in time for the elections, so wonders how long this Sunni-Shia rapproachment last, given that it is clearly seen as short term by Malki.

Eddie Haskell David Petraeus to Head CENTCOM

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Great. This is a man who has staked his personal reputation in Iraq, and now they want him to allocate resources between Iraq and Afghanistan. I wouldn’t expect much perspective here.

Even more disturbing are his lies regarding Iran, which implies that Bush and His Evil Minions™ now have someone who be willing to attack Iran without question.

Furthermore, this will create a problem for an eventual Democratic nominee, because It’s clear that Petraeus will be a voice for Iraq forever, otherwise he looks like the charlatan he is, and there will be political blowback if they try to remove him from the post.

My hope would be that the hearings for his appointment would be scheduled for sometime in late January, 2009.

Even Now, Bush and His Evil Minions™ Can Leave Me Dumbstruck

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Every time that I think that the Bush Administration can’t get any more self serving venal and incompetent, they rais the bar.

This time, it’s the worst National Security Adviser ever, shortly to be the worst Secretary of State ever, Condoleeza Rice, who has just basically called Muqtada al-Sadr a c@cks#cker.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice mocked anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr as a coward on Sunday, hours after the radical leader threatened to declare war unless U.S. and Iraqi forces end a military crackdown on his followers.

Rice, in the Iraqi capital to tout security gains and what she calls an emerging political consensus, said al-Sadr is content to issue threats and edicts from the safety of Iran, where he is studying. Al-Sadr heads an unruly militia that was the main target of an Iraqi government assault in the oil-rich city of Basra last month, and his future role as a spoiler is an open question.

“I know he’s sitting in Iran,” Rice said dismissively, when asked about al-Sadr’s latest threat to lift a self-imposed cease-fire with government and U.S. forces. “I guess it’s all-out war for anybody but him,” Rice said. “I guess that’s the message; his followers can go too their deaths and he’s in Iran.”

This from a woman unwilling to announce her visits to Iraq in advance, who spends her whole time in a heavily fortified walled city, and has something like 1000 soldiers, and an equal number of mercenaries protecting her.

Un f#$@ing believable.

An Insight into the Clusterf%$# in Basra

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It now appears that Petraeus has had a plan of a massive US offensive in Basra for some time, and Nouri al-Maliki, fearful of the political blow-back from US operations there, launched his own campaign last month.

The last three paras reveal that the politics here are Byzantine:

Bush administration suspicions of al-Maliki’s intentions could not have been eased by the fact that a delegation of pro-government parties traveled to Iran to ask the commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to negotiate a ceasefire with the Mahdi Army. That ploy move, which did result in a tenuous ceasefire, raised the possibility that al-Maliki intended from the beginning that the outcome of the Basra operation would be a new agreement that would prevent the deployment of U.S. and British troops to fight the Mahdi Army during the summer.

Bush administration officials have been asserting that the most important thing about the Basra operation is that al-Maliki is now convinced that Iran is really an enemy rather than a friend. But al-Maliki’s Apr. 7 interview with CNN’s Robertson made it clear that he has not budged from his position that his government’s interests lie in an accord between Iran and the United States — not in taking sides against Iran.

“We will always reject the idea of any side using Iraq as a launching pad for its attack on others,” said al-Maliki. “We reject Iran using Iraq to attack the U.S., and at the same time we reject the idea of the U.S. using Iraq to attack Iran…”

Why the hell are we in there again?

Sadr City, Warsaw Ghetto, What’s the Dif?

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Any answer to my question?

U.S. Begins Erecting Wall in Sadr City
By MICHAEL R. GORDON

BAGHDAD — Trying to stem the infiltration of militia fighters, American forces have begun to build a massive concrete wall that will partition Sadr City, the densely populated Shiite neighborhood in the Iraqi capital.

The construction, which began Tuesday night, is intended to turn the southern quarter of Sadr City near the international Green Zone into a protected enclave, secured by Iraqi and American forces, where the Iraqi government can undertake reconstruction efforts.

This is what passes for moral leadership under Bush and His Evil Minions™.

I want my country back.

Iraq Update

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First, we are seeing
another surge in bombings across Iraq, which should make one doubt about the claims of success with the US military surge.

Part of the problem, of course, is that Maliki is fundamentally disinterested in anything other his own very sort term sectarian power needs. First, he actively participated in ethnic cleansing, and now the only groups providing any meaningful aid to the million or so internally displaced Iraqis are the militias.

As to the conflict with Sadr, which is all about Maliki trying to gain an electoral advantage, not Iran or “lawlessness”, Major General Jeffery Hammond has announced that the US military has no intention of moving any further into Sadr city, which sounds an awful lot like the start of a “Fallujah moment”, when the generals declare victory and pull out.

That being said, the Iraqi troops are not waiting for a declaration of victory, they are leaving now.

The episode began when Major Sattar, the leader of an Iraqi company that had taken up positions 700 yards in front of the Americans, suddenly appeared at Company B’s field headquarters in the southern part of Sadr City.

The major’s company had replaced a more battle-hardened Iraqi unit just two days earlier, and he had been unhappy to find that he would be occupying a position to the front of the better trained and equipped Americans.

I’d be unhappy if I were told that my job was to be a speed bump too.