Thread: 'Handed Over' to a Government Called Sadr

April 02, 2008
'Handed Over' to a Government Called Sadr
Inter Press Service
By Ali al-Fadhily and Dahr Jamail*

BAGHDAD, Apr 2 (IPS) - Despite the huge media campaign led by U.S. officials and a complicit corporate-controlled media to convince the world of U.S. success in Iraq, emerging facts on the ground show massive failure.

The date March 25 of this year will be remembered as the day of truth through five years of occupation.

"Mehdi army militias controlled all Shia and mixed parts of Baghdad in no time," a Baghdad police colonel, speaking on condition of anonymity, told IPS. "Iraqi army and police forces as well as Badr and Dawa militias suddenly disappeared from the streets, leaving their armoured vehicles for Mehdi militiamen to drive around in joyful convoys that toured many parts of Baghdad before taking them to their stronghold of Sadr City in the east of Baghdad."

The police colonel was speaking of the recent clashes between members of the Shia Muqtada al-Sadr's Mehdi Army, the largest militia in the country, and members of the Iraqi government forces, that are widely known to comprise members of a rival Shia militia, the Badr Organisation.

Dozens of militiamen from both sides were killed in clashes that broke out in Baghdad, Basra, Kut, Samawa, Hilla and most of the Iraqi Shia southern provinces between the Mehdi Army and other militias supported by the U.S., Iran and the Iraqi government.

The Badr Organisation militia is headed by Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, who is also head of the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (SIIC) that dominates the government. The Dawa Party is headed by Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

The number of civilians killed and injured in the clashes is still unknown. Iraqi government offices continue to keep largely silent about the events.

"Every resident of Basra knew the situation would explode any minute between these oil thieves, and that Basra would suffer another wave of militia war," Salman Kathum, a doctor and former resident of Basra who fled for Baghdad last month told IPS.

For months now there has been a struggle between the Sadr Movement, the SIIC, and the al-Fadhila Party for control of the south, and particularly Basra.

Falah Shenshal, an MP allied to al-Sadr, told al-Jazeera Mar. 26 that al-Maliki was targeting political opponents. "They say they target outlaw gangs, but why do they start with the areas where the sons of the Sadr movement are located? This is a political battle...for the political interests of one party (al-Maliki's Dawa party) because the local elections are coming soon (due later this year)."

The fighting came just as the U.S. military announced the death of their 4,000th soldier in Iraq, and on the heels of a carefully crafted PR campaign designed to show that the "surge" of U.S. troops in Iraq has successfully improved the situation on the ground.

"I wonder what lies General David Petraeus (the U.S. forces commander in Iraq) will fabricate this time," Malek Shakir, a journalist in Baghdad told IPS. "The 25th March events revealed the true failure of the U.S. occupation project in Iraq. More complications are expected in the coming days."

Maliki has himself been in Basra to lead a surge against Mehdi Army militias while the U.S. sent forces to surround Sadr City in an attempt to support their Badr and Dawa allies.

News of limited clashes and air strikes have come from Sadr City, with unofficial reports of many casualties amongst civilians. Curfew in many parts of Baghdad and in four southern provinces had made life difficult already.

"This failure takes Iraq to point zero and even worse," Brigadier-General Kathum Alwan of the Iraqi army told IPS in Baghdad. "We must admit that the formation of our forces was wrong, as we saw how our officers deserted their posts, leaving their vehicles for militias."

Alwan added, "Not a single unit of our army and police stood for their duty in Baghdad, leaving us wondering what to do. Most of the officers who left their posts were members of Badr brigades and the Dawa Party, who should have been most faithful to Maliki's government."

The Green Zone of Baghdad where the U.S. embassy and the Iraqi government and parliament buildings are located, was hit by missiles. General Petraeus appeared at a press conference to accuse Iran of being behind the shelling of the zone that is supposed to be the safest area in Iraq. At least one U.S. citizen was killed in the attacks, and two others were injured.

"The Green Zone looked deserted as most U.S. and Iraqi personnel were ordered to take shelter deep underground," an engineer who works for a foreign company in the zone told IPS. "It seemed that this area too was under curfew. No place in Iraq is safe any more."

Further complicating matters for the occupiers of Iraq, the U.S.-backed Awakening groups, largely comprised of former resistance fighters, are now going on strike to demand overdue payment from the U.S. military.

(*Ali, our correspondent in Baghdad, works in close collaboration with Dahr Jamail, our U.S.-based specialist writer on Iraq who has reported extensively from Iraq and the Middle East)

http://dahrjamailiraq.com/hard_news/arc ... 4.php#more

How Moqtada al-Sadr Won in Basra
Tuesday, Apr. 01, 2008 By CHARLES CRAIN/BAGHDAD



Iraqi Shiite militia take cover in a gun battle with government forces in Basra on March 28
ESSAM AL-SUDANI/AFP/Getty Images

The Iraqi military's offensive in Basra was supposed to demonstrate the power of the central government in Baghdad. Instead it has proven the continuing relevance of anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. Sadr's militia, the Mahdi Army, stood its ground in several days of heavy fighting with Iraqi soldiers backed up by American and British air power. But perhaps more important than the manner in which the militia fought is the manner in which it stopped fighting. On Sunday Sadr issued a call for members of the Mahdi Army to stop appearing in the streets with their weapons and to cease attacks on government installations. Within a day, the fighting had mostly ceased. It was an ominous answer to a question posed for months by U.S. military observes: Is Sadr still the leader of a unified movement and military force? The answer appears to be yes.

In the view of many American troops and officers, the Mahdi Army had splintered irretrievably into a collection of independent operators and criminal gangs. Now, however, the conclusion of the conflict in Basra shows that when Sadr speaks, the militia listens.

That apparent authority is in marked contrast to the weakness of Iraq's Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki. He traveled south to Basra with his security ministers to supervise the operation personally. After a few days of intense fighting he extended his previously announced deadline for surrender and offered militants cash in exchange for their weapons. Yet in the cease-fire announcement the militia explicitly reserved the right to hold onto its weapons. And the very fact of the cease-fire flies in the face of Maliki's proclamation that there would be no negotiations. It is Maliki, and not Sadr, who now appears militarily weak and unable to control elements of his own political coalition.

Sadr, in fact, finds himself in a perfect position: both in politics and out of it, part of the establishment and yet anti-establishment. Despite the fighting, he never pulled his allies out of the government or withdrew his support from Maliki in Parliament, which he could have done. Nor did he demand that all his followers leave Parliament and work outside the current political system. He has kept his hand in as a hedge.

Sadr has proven increasingly adept at politics. Last summer, he ordered his hand-picked ministers out of Maliki's cabinet after the Prime Minister refused to demand a timetable for withdrawal of U.S. troops. To the public, it looked like he was taking a principled stand against the occupation. But the boycott did nothing to dilute his influence in the government. All the ministries his party once headed are still staffed to the gills with his followers, who continue to create jobs for other loyalists and operate Sadr's growing political machine. Sadr is, in addition to being a military force, a source of political patronage.

He can now play the victim card, arguing that Maliki and the Americans had attacked him and his loyalists, even while allowing the militias of his Shi'ite rivals to prosper — as well as the U.S.-paid Sunni militias that are now being integrated into the Iraqi police and army. He can reasonably argue that he is the one true Iraqi patriot, the Iraqi leader the Americans fear most. How else to explain the attack on his Mahdi Army while he was observing a unilateral cease-fire? Furthermore, like Hizballah in Lebanon after the Israeli invasion in 2006, the Mahdi Army can claim a victory by simply surviving an assault by an Iraqi government backed by the Americans. That is significant street cred.

Strategically, Sadr called a cease-fire at the right time: practically synchronized to get the maximum political benefit while preserving his military capabilities. Again, it is a lesson he learned from recent experience. In 2004 Sadr's militia was severely damaged in fighting with American soldiers and Marines. In the process, however, Sadr became a symbol of Shi'ite resistance to the U.S. military occupation and parlayed that reputation into a seat at the political table. And so now, just when it appeared that he might be marginalized again, the Iraqi government has burnished Sadr's image as a leader who defies the United States and an Iraqi government that refuses to eject U.S. troops.

He clearly plans to preserve both his political and military personas. He was smart to declare a unilateral cease-fire last August. That allowed the Maliki government and the Americans to do the dirty work of clearing Sadr's militia of unsavory — and unpopular — criminal elements. But then the coalition began to round up more and more legitimate Sadr lieutenants, perhaps precipitating some of last week's confrontation in Baghdad. One of Sadr's principal demands when he met with the delegation of Shi'ite political leaders to discuss the new cease-fire was that more of his forces be released under the amnesty law. This was to appease his disgruntled followers whose brothers and uncles are the ones behind bars and who feel they have taken an unfair brunt of the surge while former Sunni insurgents are getting paychecks in the Concerned Local Citizens units. Like any good politician, he has to prove he can deliver the goods to his followers — even if he has to go to war for it. With reporting by Brian Bennett, Bobby Ghosh, Abigail Hauslohner and Mark Kukis

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/ ... %2C00.html