McClatchy: Iraqi prime minister said he warned U.S. about Shiite militias

[Pirate Smile]

Iraqi prime minister said he warned U.S. about Shiite militias

By Leila Fadel
McClatchy Newspapers

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraq's first democratically elected prime minister said this week that he warned U.S. officials two years ago that Shiite Muslim militias were infiltrating the country's security services and that they would become entrenched in Iraqi society if they weren't stopped.

"But with deep remorse the friends did not help us," said Ibrahim al-Jaafari, who became Iraq's prime minister after elections on Jan. 30, 2005. "America didn't help us."

Al-Jaafari's recollection of his meetings with U.S. officials during his tenure as prime minister raises more questions about the Bush administration's assertion that Iraq's sectarian violence can be traced to the Feb. 22, 2006, bombing of a Shiite shrine in Samarra.

President Bush, in announcing on Jan. 10 that he was ordering 21,500 additional American troops to Iraq, said that events in the country had been proceeding smoothly in 2005 and that it was only after the Samarra bombing that Shiites began targeting Sunnis in revenge attacks.
But U.S. diplomats, Iraqi politicians, U.S. intelligence analysts and journalists had reported throughout 2005 that Shiite militia attacks on Sunnis were increasing and that the militias had infiltrated the security forces.

http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/16583151.htm

[joemurphy]

1. So let me get this straight. We're depending on the Iraqi

security forces to "step to the plate" and crack down on the Shiite militias? Ummm, why would they do that?

[Eugene]

2. PM Jafaari who looked the other way when fellow Shiites were caught running secret torture chambers?

PM Jafarri who is was asked to stand down because of his close ties
to Muqtada al-Sadr? Much of the sectarian bloodletting started
under his watch, carried out by his political allies.