Iraqi Troops to Take Lead In Fighting Sadr's Forces

[Rose Siding]

NAJAF, Iraq, Aug. 14 -- Prime Minister Ayad Allawi will send Iraqi troops to Najaf to battle a Shiite Muslim militia, Iraqi officials and U.S. commanders said Saturday after peace talks collapsed between the interim government and rebellious cleric Moqtada Sadr.

"The army will be deployed now" to the city, where U.S. forces have been fighting the militia, said Sabah Kadhim, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry. Units of the new Iraqi army would immediately prepare for an offensive aimed at evicting Sadr's Mahdi Army from the shrine of Imam Ali, a sacred site the militia has used as a refuge, he said.

News of the deployment -- the first since sovereignty was restored to Iraq on June 28 -- reached U.S. forces just as scores of tanks, armored troop carriers and Humvees lined up inside the gate of the main U.S. military base in Najaf, apparently preparing for significant combat operations just hours after a two-day truce had been called off. They then turned around and went back into camp.

A U.S. commander spread the word that missions were being scrubbed, conveying a message written on a Post-it note that the prime minister was angry and was "sending Iraqi Army to settle the problem."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A105-2004Aug14.html

[bvar22]

1. Yeah...this is gonna work....

about as well as it worked in Fallujah.

Iraqis are going to kill other Iraqis because the bush* puppet tells them to.

[IndianaGreen]

3. This will further demoralize our troops

and make them so pissed at the idiots that put them in that mess that will vote heavily against Bush this November.

If you want to come home, vote against Bush!

Doesn't this shit remind you of the Vietnam tactic of never holding the ground one takes and having to fight for it all over again and again.

[Rose Siding]

11. Here's Newsweek's account of that attempt-

As fierce fighting erupted in parts of Iraq in early April, the U.S.-led coalition tried to deploy U.S.-trained Iraqi units to quell the fighting. The results were disastrous: During the violence, many Iraqi police and civil defense personnel abandoned their posts, or joined Shiite militants loyal to renegade cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. What’s more, some soldiers of the first U.S.-trained battalion of the New Iraqi Army (NIA) deserted their unit or refused to follow orders. “There were a number of troops, there were a number of police that didn’t stand up when their country called,” concedes coalition military spokesperson Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt.
snip>

Eyewitnesses at the Taji base report seeing the startling sight of soldiers from the 2nd battalion clad only in their underwear. “I was surprised to see more than 30 soldiers barefoot with only their underclothes on,” says Qais Al-Dulaimi, a contractor for the Baghdad Tower Contracting Company involved in U.S.-supervised reconstruction work in the camp. When Dulaimi asked an Iraqi officer about the nearly naked soldiers, the officer replied that they were being punished for disobeying military orders. “I served in the army for more than ten years without experiencing anything like this,” says Dulaimi.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4766616/site/newsweek/

[ColdWarZoomie]

21. But, but, but....

Iraqi forces are now 100% good-to-go since April with the extra 3 months of training.

Sure.

Yeah.

Yep.

[thebigidea]

2. and by "Iraqi Army," we mean about 12 guys...

8 of which will ditch the whole Najaf thing in favor of taking a long nap. 2 of them will provide information to the insurgents, and the other 2 will shoot at rocks.

[IndianaGreen]

4. Bawahahahaha

The "new" Iraqi army makes the ARVN look top of the line!

[Barrett808]

5. A fundamental issue is that these forces are thoroughly infiltrated

Probably half the materiel we're dumping on them goes straight to the insurgency.

[0007]

6. Allawi is the goddamn problem along with the U.S.

Bring the troops home and let this US appointed cretin fend for himself.

[bemildred]

7. This has to be a big relief for al Sadr. nt

[jukes]

8. 1 word...

ARVN!

[Alpharetta]

9. the beginning of the civil war?

pitting Iraqi vs. Iraqi seems like the first step to get them fighting each other.

I've been educated a bit about my misconception the war would be Shiite vs. Sunni vs. Kurd. That's not how it goes in Iraq. In Iraq, like much of the Arab world, it's the tribes that count.

So this little battle will be a Baghdad vs. Najaf civil conflict. It's a start.

[xxqqqzme]

16. just what I was thinking

Is this the 'official' start of a civil war?

[grytpype]

10. Sadr should do a deal with the Iraqi troops...

... that his men will surrender the city to them, and join their forces. Like Falluja. Just like Falluja.

[Disturbed]

12. "since sovereignty was restored to Iraq"

What a freakin' lie!

Full Sovereignty?

"Throughout the spring, as hundreds died in the spiraling conflict, as Regime bosses applied their hardcore "anti-terrorist" tortures to innocent bystanders raked up in their occupation nets, as Regime mouthpieces prated endlessly of "liberation" and "sovereignty," Bush viceroy Paul Bremer was quietly signing a series of edicts that will give the United States effective control over the military, ministries -- and money -- of any Iraqi government, for years to come, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Bremer has placed U.S.-appointed "commissions" made up of Americans and local puppets throughout Iraqi government agencies; the ministers supposedly in charge weren't even told of the edicts. These boards "will serve multiyear terms and have significant authority to run criminal investigations, award contracts, direct troops and subpoena citizens," the Journal reports. Any new Iraqi government "will have little control over its armed forces, lack the ability to make or change laws and be unable to make major decisions within specific ministries without tacit U.S. approval, say U.S. officials.


Earlier Bremer edicts laid the Iraqi economy wide open to ruthless exploitation by Bush-approved foreign "investors"; dominance of such key sectors as banking, communications -- and energy -- is already well advanced. The latest dictates aim to ensure that this organized looting goes on, no matter what kind of makeshift "interim government" the United Nations manage to piece together. Bush's plans to build a Saddamite fortress embassy in Baghdad and 14 permanent military bases around the country are designed to provide the knee-breaking "security" for these lucrative arrangements."



http://context.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2004/05/21/120.html

The Hand-Over That Wasn't: Illegal Orders give the US a Lock on Iraq's Economy
by Antonia Juhasz

Officially, the U.S. occupation of Iraq ended on June 28, 2004. But in reality, the United States is still in charge: Not only do 138,000 troops remain to control the streets, but the "100 Orders" of L. Paul Bremer III remain to control the economy.

These little noticed orders enacted by Bremer, the now-departed head of the now-defunct Coalition Provisional Authority, go to the heart of Bush administration plans in Iraq. They lock in sweeping advantages to American firms, ensuring long-term U.S. economic advantage while guaranteeing few, if any, benefits to the Iraqi people.

The Bremer orders control every aspect of Iraqi life - from the use of car horns to the privatization of state-owned enterprises. Order No. 39 alone does no less than "transition from a … centrally planned economy to a market economy" virtually overnight and by U.S. fiat. Although many thought that the "end" of the occupation would also mean the end of the orders, on his last day in Iraq Bremer simply transferred authority for the orders to Prime Minister Iyad Allawi - a 30-year exile with close ties to the CIA and British intelligence.

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0805-07.htm

[daleo]

13. Where exactly did this "Iraqi Army" come from, anyway

It seemed only a few weeks ago that a rag-tag few hundreds were being trained, and progress was acknowledged to be slow. Now, we are to believe a crack outfit will lead the assault, against fighters that the U.S. marines have had their hands full with. Yeah, right.

[bemildred]

14. I think this is a sort of fig leaf.

Nothing further will be done about Najaf for the moment.
At least until they think things have settled down again.
al Sadr - 1, Allawi - 0.

[daleo]

15. You could be right

With the talk about disbanding the "Fallujah Brigade" it could be that the real action might be back there again.

[bemildred]

17. I think the central gov't can't make up it's mind what to do.

All the choices are bad and doing nothing is bad, so we get
the illusion of doing something without actually trying to
effect any change. Noise and light, but no heat. They are back
to the sniping in the cemetary bit in Najaf. I am guessing that
the Faloojah bit means they aren't going to pay the Faloojans
not to fight them anymore, a commitment the Faloojans only
kept to the extent we stayed out of the city in any case.

[NNN0LHI]

18. Kurdish peshmergas would be my guess. They were in Fallujah too

http://ancapistan.typepad.com/unfairwitness/2004/04/kurdish_peshmer.html

Members of the Iraqi special forces, a unit formed by Kurdish peshmergas, walk throught the outskirts of Fallujah, Iraq, Wednesday, April 7, 2004, for a joint patrol with U.S. Marines of the 2nd Battalion 1st Marine Regiment. (AP Photo/Murad Sezer)

[bemildred]

20. Possibly.

Although I have read elsewhere (posted it in F/A I think) that
the Kurds are not too happy with the new central gov't. It is
true that Allawi is desperate at this point, al Sadr has called
him out publicly, and you can see that they are trying to figure
out a way to kill him or capture him. They would love to parade
him on live TV, but the more they try, the more things spin out
of control. There is no way they are going to fight their way into
the shrine with any force whatsoever without dire consequences,
I mean something like an Allawi barbecue, and al Sadr is playing
chicken with them over that. Aidoneus pointed out that there is
a vast rat-warren of tunnels under the city too, so it will be very
hard to be sure of a snatch. This is way better than a movie.

[ColdWarZoomie]

23. Hmmmm

Kurds coming down to fight Shi'ites?

Doesn't sound good to me.

[Aidoneus]

19. Hopefully they will be like the "Iraqi army/police" in al-`Amarah

which saw members go over by the hundreds to the Jaysh al-Mahdi in protest of the massacres in Najaf.

[Doosh]

22. Civil War?