Possible Disaster in Baghdad
by Olds88
Tue Feb 13, 2007 at 10:44:29 AM PST
The title of this diary may sound vastly understated, even sarcastic. It isn't meant that way. It is meant as an alarm.
The current escalation in Baghdad might not be just more of the same, might not just be worse, it might be a military disaster. From what I have learned, it seems the elements of a large-scale defeat for US forces could be drawing into place in the city. The result could be hundreds of casualties on top of a failed mission.
Below are my observations drawn from current news reports and study of previous operations in Iraq. If my fears are borne out, the current Baghdad security plan leaves our troops vulnerable to almost every weapon at the insurgents' disposal.
- Olds88's diary :: ::
"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." --1st Lt. Dan Quinn, platoon leader, 1st Infantry Division in eastern Baghdad
THE PLAN SO FAR...
Few specifics about the plan have been released except for the AEI's original map which simply showed Army Brigade Combat Teams sprinkled across the districts of Baghdad. It wasn't clear if the troops would be garrisoned on bases in brigade strength (3,500-4,000 soldiers), battalions (800-1,000), or smaller units. If early operations are any indication, the troop deployments will be modeled on a single house in northeastern Baghdad.The Adhamiya neighborhood of Baghdad is the last Sunni enclave on the east side of the Tigris. Despite being only a short car bomb drive from Sadr City, it has stayed Sunni largely because of the presence of US troops. Since August of 2006, an Army company has lived in a house in the neighborhood. They patrol the streets, getting attacked daily from inside the neighborhood by Sunnis or from outside by raiding Shiites. They are a unit of 120 soldiers and they are a long way from friendly forces. When I read about this situation, the first word that popped into my head was, "Alamo." I would never consider using such a cynical term out loud but, hell, that's what the soldiers on the ground are calling it. Its real name is a much more reassuring fort Apache:
[MICHAEL HOLMES, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT]: We're with Charlie Company, 126th Infantry, based at forward operating base Apache. Although it's not really a base, it's actually a house. A hundred and twenty men in the middle of probably the city's most dangerous area.
HENDRIX: Some guys call it the Alamo, you know. It's just a house in the middle of Adhamiya. Nobody else around. No other units.
HOLMES: They are fired on regularly by insurgents, both Sunni and Shia. The house shows the scars.
A couple of months ago, insurgents attacked her. Charlie Company killed 38 of them. Around here, something as simple as leaving a house after speaking with the owners requires smoke grenades for cover.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We unfortunately, you know, learn some hard lessons.
HOLMES: Since arriving here in August, Charlie Company has never left, never stopped patrolling, 24/7. They've lost five men, two dozen wounded, and earned a fistful of medals for bravery.
(on camera): Is there a day here where something doesn't happen?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No. No.
Surge author and tin soldier abuser Fred Kagan has bitched that soldiers need to get out of their vehicles and make contact with the residents to quell violence. Since early reports suggest there could be a critical vehicle shortage, that part of the plan seems assured. The situation described above is what they may look forward to.
LITTLE HOUSE ON THE BATTLEFIELD
Another house was recently set up in the ethnically-cleansed Shiite neighborhood of Shaab just northeast of Adhamiya. You may remember the fighting in Shaab and adjacent Ur around February 6th. A Stryker Brigade was clearing an area of insurgents in order to establish a house for a company from the 82nd Airborne. Those soldiers of the 82nd will have a challenging task of winning hearts and minds if this resident's account of the clearing operation is accurate:A resident of Ur said about 10 U.S. Stryker armored vehicles had snaked through her neighborhood but became stuck on a narrow street. Unable to turn around, she said, the first Stryker rammed down the walls of a school and drove through it, followed by the rest of the convoy.
Is it just me? Does that paragraph depict a crystal-clear, multi-dimensional problem of interfacing troops with a high-density civilian population? In the event of an emergency, it is likely that these Strykers will be coming to the aid of troops under attack. Situations like the one above are going to kill civilians and vehicle occupants alike as insurgents attempt to turn tight alleyways into incinerators.
Getting back to the houses: they are officially known as JSSs, Joint Security Stations-- buildings where US and Iraqi troops will work and live together... at least until they don't. US officers won't have authority over the Iraqis-- who will take orders from a separate chain of command. Given the infiltration of Iraq's Security Forces, having them within the walls could be incredibly dangerous. A cynic might see them as an early warning system-- the day they disappear is probably the same day the Mahdi Army is planning to attack. Of course, when they do disappear, they will be taking knowledge of the building's layout, weak points, schedules, ammunition storage, supply levels, etc.
In short, this "Surge" plan will expose US soldiers to every weapon the Shiite and Sunni militias have: snipers, mortars, IEDs, car bombs, but most importantly: supply route interruption.
SUPPLY ROUTES
Research for this diary keeps circling back to the events of April 2004. That month is most vividly remembered for the image of four mercenaries killed and suspended from a bridge and the subsequent siege of Falluja. But it was also the month Sadr's Mahdi Army joined the fighting and took over large areas of the South. During the first half of April, his militia took over Karbala, Kufa, Najaf, and Kut,. The result was one of the deadliest months of the war. What was far less reported was the simultaneous and extremely effective attack on supply routes:The south-north highway, over which all the deliveries out of the main supply hub crossed, was marked with more than 300 bridges. The bulk of these bridges are low, culvert-style structures. Insurgents cut as many as they could in any way possible. They punctured oil pipelines under bridges and set them aflame to inspire a collapse. They detonated explosives to punch ragged holes in the roadway. In one instance, insurgents dissembled a tall bridge spanning a river. They also targeted likely alternative routes. “They effectively shut us down,” he said. “When they took out the bridges ... we lost about seven days. In conjunction, they increased the op tempo in the north, especially in the Fallujah area ... I didn’t sleep for eight days.”
DoD map of attacks on April 7, 2004 (Green arrows are Mahdi Army attacks on cities lining supply routes).While US forces were dealing with critical shortages and resorting to air resupply across the country, Iraq's militias were joining forces. Within days of the uprising, Sadr militia and ex-Baathist-- hated enemies-- were working together in sophisticated attacks as reported at the time:
"The dropping of the bridges was very interesting, because it showed a regional or even a national level of organization," Pittard said in an interview. He said insurgents appeared to be sending information southward, communicating about routes being taken by U.S. forces and then getting sufficient amounts of explosives to key bridges ahead of the convoys.
With occupation forces battling Sadr's Shiite militiamen south and east of Baghdad and Sunni Muslim insurgents to the north and west, the timing of the Iraqis' tactical development is nearly as troubling for U.S. forces as its effect. But the explanation for the change is not yet clear, military commanders said.
Here in southern Iraq, which is overwhelmingly Shiite, U.S. officers say the best guess is that former soldiers who served under President Saddam Hussein have decided to lend their expertise and coordinating abilities to the untrained Shiite militiamen.
"It's a combination of Saddam loyalists and Shiite militias," Maj. Gen. John R. Batiste, commander of the 1st Infantry Division, said in a brief interview here at FOB Duke, where he was reviewing combat preparations.
The generally accepted conclusion to this episode was that the US entered a stand off in Falluja while decisively beating concentrations of the Mahdi Army in the south. While those events did occur, the timing suggests other forces were at work beyond the battlefield. Around the middle of the month, it was reported that Sadr was ready to negotiate. Shortly after, attacks on convoys lessened. At the time, Sadr's willingness to deal was depicted as desperation to avoid the destruction of his militia. But just three months later, he was given his own 32-seat faction in the new Iraqi Parliament and the health, agriculture, transport, and education ministries. Negotiations appear to have gone well.
Regardless of the backdoor machinations, US combat support units had a job to do: move supplies. Their immediate response was additional escorts, fast driving, and emergency airlifts for critical items like ammunition. After April, alternate routes were added, trucks were armored, and supply points were decentralized. While these changes might help on the open road, they are not applicable to delivering supplies over the last mile in Baghdad. Resupplying dozens of JSS buildings will mean either many small, lightly defended convoys or fewer, but larger, convoys snaking their way through the crowded streets of Baghdad.
HELICOPTERS
Coordinated attacks on road traffic would leave the forward-deployed companies at the JSS buildings reliant on helicopters for supplies, reinforcements, and evacuations-- medical or otherwise. Helicopters, as widely reported, are facing increased threats themselves. Al Qaeda in Iraq has claimed it has a newer "Strella" type shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles [they may be referring to the Strella-3 (NATO-code SA-14), or Igla-1 (SA-16) or Igla (SA-18) missiles that can attack aircraft from any side, not just from behind like the easily-confused, heat-seeking Strella-2 (SA-7), of which Iraq has many]. Al Qaeda in Iraq is also claiming the weapons are being made available to all groups regardless of affiliation (I presume they mean only other Sunni groups, though). Whether this is true or not, there has obviously been effective coordination against helicopters. Even worse, most of the recent attacks have occurred outside of the cities. A helicopter attempting to land or hover in order to drop supplies to a house in Mansour or Sadr City would be an extremely easy target even to RPGs (remember Black Hawk Down?).By dividing our forces, the plan not only gives the Sunni and Shiites a chance to attack, it gives them a chance to lay siege.
And most frighteningly, it gives Shia and Sunni an strong incentive to work together again.
CAN THEY WORK TOGETHER AGAIN?
Probably. Despite the ongoing civil war, there are individuals and groups with connections across sectarian lines. On the Shiite side, there is Moqtada al Sadr. His organization provided relief supplies to Falluja during the April 2004 siege-- an act that made him a lot of friends among the Sunnis. His relatively nationalistic outlook and his constant call for Americans to leave Iraq roughly lines up with the priorities of non-al Qaeda groups on the Sunni side. That makes Sadr the man who can determine whether Baghdad waits out the American presence, fights, or lays a trap.At this stage, Sadr's wisest strategy would still be to wait. Whether we leave in 6 months or two years, we are leaving. Despite the ravings of Bush, the Baghdad meat grinder is going to run out of cash and bodies soon enough. Once we're gone, Sadr can ethnically cleanse Baghdad before destroying SCIRI. At that point, it is just a matter of having a giant statue cast for Firdos Square.
The US seems intent on drawing Sadr out though. As I first mentioned in this diary, many of his lieutenants have been captured or killed and several officials have been arrested from ministries he controls. There have also been several strikes within Sadr City in the last few weeks. Provoking Sadr like this makes a limited amount of sense: if you can take him on individually and crush him now, smaller groups would likely refrain from doing the same. Also, a weakened Sadr may lose the the confidence of other groups.
But the greatest danger comes from a coordinated Sunni/Shia planned uprising. If they lay in wait until JSS houses are spread across the city, they could inflict severe casualties at those outposts while paralyzing movement on the roads and in the sky. Eventually, Abrams tanks and Strykers could reach the houses-- but only by cutting wide swaths of destruction trough dense neighborhoods (much like the Stryker path through the school, just miles longer). The mission in Baghdad would be over in many senses: practically, militarily, and morally.
CONCLUSION
The events described here may or may not come to pass. Like Fred Kagan, I am no expert. All I know is what I have read about the situation and how the participants have acted in the past. Our troops will be spread out in vulnerable positions. The Sunni/Shia factions has stopped convoys in the past. They are shooting down helicopters now. Most importantly, they have cooperated jointly in combat before. These are seemingly the perfect conditions for disaster. If theses dangers haven't been addressed, that negligence would be criminal.UPDATE: I just want to make clear that I am not predicting a defeat for the entire US Army in Baghdad. A siege of the airport, for instance, is incredibly unlikely. Specifically, I am saying it appears the Joint Security Stations are too small to provide adequate protection for US forces manning them. If the stations are vulnerable, the soldiers will not be able to provide neighborhood security. An attack could result in needless casualties and failure of the operation's goal. The Army would in no way be swept from the city though.
Still, the most likely outcome is that the factions wait until we leave. It's sad that could be considered a good outcome.
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Steve Gilliard, 1964-2007
It is with tremendous sadness that we must convey the news that Steve Gilliard, editor and publisher of The News Blog, passed away June 2, 2007. He was 42.
To those who have come to trust The News Blog and its insightful, brash and unapologetic editorial tone, we have Steve to thank from the bottom of our hearts. Steve helped lead many discussions that mattered to all of us, and he tackled subjects and interest categories where others feared to tread.
Please keep Steve's friends and family in your thoughts and prayers.
Steve meant so much to us.
We will miss him terribly.
photo by lindsay beyerstein
Taylor Marsh: "The New Sunni-Shiite Cold War"
The Redirection, by Seymour Hersh 
He sure gets the scoops, doesn't he? hmmmm.
Thanks to TAYLOR MARSH for this insightful analysis of Hersh's newest article - THANK TAYLOR!
We can only hope it's a cold war. Seymour Hersh lays it out.
Think Iraq, only imagine the religious, tribal and sectarian carnage expanded
throughout the Middle East. Got that picture? Welcome to Mr. Bush's long-term
plan for the Middle East, pitting Sunnis and Shia in the hopes of allying the
former with Israel to contain the latter.
Today on CNN, Seymour Hersh talked about Iran and his new piece just out on
the realities we're currently facing. He talked about a plan wherein Mr. Bush
will decide to strike Iran and get the job done in what is called a "24
hour package." The strike would be decided, launched and completed within
24 hours. They're cocked and loaded and ready to pull the trigger. Shhhh.
Don't tell Congress. As Hersh also said, "I've been writing the same
story for a year. ..." That's true, but this latest story from Hersh
and The New Yorker has a whole different expanse and complexity to
it. After the revolution of 1979 brought a religious government to power, the
United States broke with Iran and cultivated closer relations with the leaders
of Sunni Arab states such as Jordan, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia. That calculation
became more complex after the September 11th attacks, especially with regard
to the Saudis. Al Qaeda is Sunni, and many of its operatives came from extremist
religious circles inside Saudi Arabia. Before the invasion of Iraq, in 2003,
Administration officials, influenced by neoconservative ideologues, assumed
that a Shiite government there could provide a pro-American balance to Sunni
extremists, since Iraq’s Shiite majority had been oppressed under Saddam
Hussein. They ignored warnings from the intelligence community about the ties
between Iraqi Shiite leaders and Iran, where some had lived in exile for years.
Now, to the distress of the White House, Iran has forged a close relationship
with the Shiite-dominated government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.
The new American policy, in its broad outlines, has been discussed publicly.
In testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in January, Secretary
of State Condoleezza Rice said that there is “a new strategic alignment
in the Middle East,” separating “reformers” and “extremists”;
she pointed to the Sunni states as centers of moderation, and said that Iran,
Syria, and Hezbollah were “on the other side of that divide.”
(Syria’s Sunni majority is dominated by the Alawi sect.) Iran and Syria,
she said, “have made their choice and their choice is to destabilize.”
Throughout his piece, which is a must read, Mr. Hersh neglects one important Iraqi actor, which Mash talked about yesterday: al-Hakim. Interesting that this central figure goes silent here. Hersh is no dummy so it's got to be by design rather than omission. I guess "stay tuned" is about all we can take
from it for now.
Now, about our friends the Saudis.
The key players behind the redirection are Vice-President Dick Cheney, the
deputy national-security adviser Elliott Abrams, the departing Ambassador
to Iraq (and nominee for United Nations Ambassador), Zalmay Khalilzad, and
Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the Saudi national-security adviser. While Rice
has been deeply involved in shaping the public policy, former and current
officials said that the clandestine side has been guided by Cheney. (Cheney’s
office and the White House declined to comment for this story; the Pentagon
did not respond to specific queries but said, “The United States is
not planning to go to war with Iran.”)
The policy shift has brought Saudi Arabia and Israel into a new strategic
embrace, largely because both countries see Iran as an existential threat.
They have been involved in direct talks, and the Saudis, who believe that
greater stability in Israel and Palestine will give Iran less leverage in
the region, have become more involved in Arab-Israeli negotiations.
The new strategy “is a major shift in American policy—it’s
a sea change,” a U.S. government consultant with close ties to Israel
said. The Sunni states “were petrified of a Shiite resurgence, and there
was growing resentment with our gambling on the moderate Shiites in Iraq,”
he said. “We cannot reverse the Shiite gain in Iraq, but we can contain
it.”
(snip)
Martin Indyk, a senior State Department official in the Clinton Administration
who also served as Ambassador to Israel, said that “the Middle East
is heading into a serious Sunni-Shiite Cold War.” Indyk, who is the
director of the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution,
added that, in his opinion, it was not clear whether the White House was fully
aware of the strategic implications of its new policy. “The White House
is not just doubling the bet in Iraq,” he said. “It’s doubling
the bet across the region. This could get very complicated. Everything is
upside down.”
The issues swirling around Lebanon are what I've been hinting about recently,
especially on radio, because there has been a "fitna" or civil war
brewing since Olmert screwed up his over the top bombing of Lebanon, and did
it so poorly that it not only emboldened Hezbollah, but left the entire region
believing that Israel has a baffoon at the top. Olmert proved that not only
was he incapable of understand military issues, but he didn't have the spine
to back down once his blunder was exposed. This has left Lebanon vulnerable
to all sorts of realities. More from Hersh:
In an interview in Beirut, a senior official in the Siniora government acknowledged that there were Sunni jihadists operating inside Lebanon. “We have a liberal attitude that allows Al Qaeda types to have a presence here,” he said. He related this to concerns that Iran or Syria might decide to turn Lebanon into a “theatre of conflict.”
(skip forward)
Nasrallah accused the Bush Administration of working with Israel to deliberately
instigate fitna, an Arabic word that is used to mean “insurrection and
fragmentation within Islam.” “In my opinion, there is a huge campaign
through the media throughout the world to put each side up against the other,”
he said. “I believe that all this is being run by American and Israeli
intelligence.” (He did not provide any specific evidence for this.)
He said that the U.S. war in Iraq had increased sectarian tensions, but argued
that Hezbollah had tried to prevent them from spreading into Lebanon. (Sunni-Shiite
confrontations increased, along with violence, in the weeks after we talked.)
Americans need to read up. This is getting very confusing for your average citizen, even for those who follow these things. The players are planning on the run to solidify turf, coupling with anything but the usual suspects, as they play with regional dynamite. It's one thing to want to move players around when enjoying a game of Risk, ala Dick Cheney. It's quite another to do it by throwing Israel and the Saudis together while Iraq is on boil.
So here is where we stand today. Iraq is in play, with the Saudis freaked out
about ethnic cleansing and a Shia crescent, while the U.S. ratchets up tensions
with Iran, who is linked in a swath of power from Iran to Lebanon, with Israel
getting more nervous by the day and the Saudis offering up all the cash they've
got to make certain that the Shia power is balanced with Sunni force, actually
dipping their diplomatic toes into a relationship with Israel, all the while
the United States agitates the situation, even though our influence in the region
has plummeted, giving the Shia and the Iranians a leg up. Got that? ...and that's
only the short version.
Now, getting out of Iraq won't begin to solve the challenges Mr. Bush and Dick
Cheney have put into motion. The Sunni-Shiite cold war is on, but it's doubtful
that any of these players will blink.
- posted by Taylor Marsh
Labels: Hersh, Iraq, Shia, sunni
Nikkos: "Why Sy Hersh is Wrong (just this once)"
Labels: Bush Iraq, Hersh, Negroponte, Shia, sunni
Spot The Arab (by their style of doorway)
Thanks to NIKKOS who contributed this great piece on Sy Hersh - THANKS NIKKOS!
Hersh's latest piece in the New Yorker is as terrifying as usual. Among
other things, it posits a shift (the "redirection" of the article's title)
in the Bush administrations' strategy in the Middle East, specifically, an
explicit decision to support Sunnis rather than Shia. If true, this would
represent a stunning reversal in alliances, considering it was the
virulently Sunni Al Qaeda that attacked the U.S. on 9/11 and that the U.S.
is currently fighting a counter-insurgency war against Sunnis in support of
the Shia Maliki government in Iraq. However, for anyone that's been watching
the unfolding disaster which is the Bush administration, these sorts of
vertigo-inducing paradoxes are par for the course.
As usual, it's hard to tell if these are acts of stupidity, strategy or
desperation. The mind reels and grasps for a "logical" explanation, a
narrative which can impose some semblance of order upon the chaos which Bush
and his cronies seem to foment everywhere they traipse. And it is here where
I think Hersh- or more accurately and fairly, his sources- get it wrong.
They get it wrong because they seek to make to make sense out of what the
Bush administration is doing, when there is, literally, no sense to be made
of the situation. Or, to use a favorite phrase of the President, "in other
words," what's going on here is not a rational re-alignment of alliances and
interests in the pursuit of some rational goal- democracy, peace and
stability in the Middle East, for instance. Rather, as has been amply
documented, the Bush administration believes in "constructive chaos" in the
Middle East; that is, the belief that, phoenix-like, a modern Middle East
can emerge only from the flames of destruction. Therefore, conflict is to be
embraced, not feared, for it is only through conflict that the Middle East
can be reborn (though there may be some "pangs," as Condi pointed out).
When viewed in this context, then, Hersh's reporting makes more sense: it's
not that we are switching sides; we're merely making sure both sides are
properly armed and that as a whole, the region is left perpetually
off-balance and unable to respond with any unity to the increasing hegemony
of the United States. The increased tempo of this destabilization may in
fact be part and parcel of an impending military strike against Iran- what
better way to blunt a unified Middle Eastern response than to make sure the
locals are busy fighting each other? Heck, it's just like in the good ol'
days when we armed Saddam on the one hand and clandestinely armed the
Iranians on the other. (Interestingly enough, Iran-Contra is back in the
news, with reports that Negroponte stepped down from DNI in order to go to
State precisely to avoid another Iran-Contra-like debacle which he saw
brewing.)
So, yes, it IS a redirection- but not the kind Sy Hersh's sources envision.
- posted by Nikkos
What the hell
Troops Sweep 3 Shiite Areas in Baghdad Push
By RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr. and DAMIEN CAVE
Published: February 15, 2007BAGHDAD, Feb. 14 — Thousands of American troops in armored Stryker vehicles swarmed three mostly Shiite neighborhoods of northeastern Baghdad on Wednesday, encountering little resistance during what commanders described as the first major sweep of the new security plan for the capital.
The push into the neighborhoods of Shaab, Bayda and Ur, on the northern edge of Sadr City, came a day after the top Iraqi general claimed broad powers to search, detain and move residents from their homes. But even though an Iraqi announced the new phase of the security plan, it was clearly an American-led operation: only 200 Iraqi police officers and soldiers were involved, commanders said, working alongside about 2,500 Americans.
Col. Steve Townsend, commander of the Third Stryker Brigade Combat Team, said the operation in northeastern Baghdad had been pushed up a day because of a request from Iraq’s Shiite-led government.
Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki has received blistering criticism for what some Iraqis have described as dangerous delays in setting the plan in motion. On Wednesday, he seemed determined to show some sign of action, even if the relatively low number of Iraqi troops involved was likely to add to concerns about the government’s ability to provide the troops it has promised.
“We’ve started a new phase today, the phase of building the state on the basis of two ideas,” he said at a news conference in the southern city of Karbala. “The basis of reconciliation — to include all those who want to support the country — and the basis of striking hard at those who want to rebel.”
At the White House, President Bush said that the new plan, fueled by the addition of more American troops, was “beginning to take shape” and that the goal was “relative peace,” though he did not refer to any specific operations. But he warned against high expectations.
“I say relative peace,” he said, “because if it’s, like, zero car bombings, it never will happen that way.”
Although the sweep in the three Shiite neighborhoods on Wednesday was the biggest operation in the capital, other efforts were felt across the city. Armored vehicles were set up on the border of Sadr City and Ur. Jets thundered overhead for much of the day and night.
The Mahdi Army has gone to ground.
Two reasons: one, they have their own plans.
Two, the Iraqi government is going to do the job for them.
But this is too easy. The discipline shown by JAM is amazing. Sunnis bombings all over place, no response. Weird. The US going to Shia areas to demonstrate force? Why, the Sunnis have been doing the bombing.
Instead of the propeganda that JAM was fracturing, the opposite is true. This kind of discipline indicated a level of control which is amazing. If there was a splinter movement, they would have done something.
Ft. Apache
Labels: baghdad, Iraq, Iraqi Army, Shia, sunni
The clock is ticking
Car bombs blast Baghdad marketplace
By KIM GAMEL, Associated Press Writer 28 minutes agoBAGHDAD, Iraq - Thunderous car bombs shattered a crowded marketplace in the heart of Baghdad on Monday, triggering secondary explosions, engulfing an eight-story building in flames and killing at least 78 people in the latest in a series of similar attacks aimed at the country's Shiite majority.
The blasts in three parked cars obliterated shops and stalls and left bodies scattered among mannequins and other debris in pools of blood. Dense smoke blackened the area and rose hundreds of feet from the market district on the east bank of the Tigris River. Small fires, fueled by clothing and other goods, burned for hours in the rubble-strewn street as firefighters battled blazes in two buildings.
"Where is the government? Where is the security plan?" survivors screamed. "We have had enough. We have lost our money and goods and our source of living."
How long will the militias remain silent?
More stupid
Top Iraqi official held in raidUS and Iraqi forces in Baghdad have arrested the deputy health minister during a raid at his offices.
The minister, Hakem al-Zamili, is a key member of the political group led by radical Shia cleric Moqtada Sadr.
He is accused of aiding Shia militiamen and using ambulances to move weapons, a ministry source told the BBC.
US and Iraqi troops have been trying to curb sectarian attacks in Iraq. The latest raid came as a car bomb killed at least 15 people south of Baghdad.
A parked car bomb struck a market in the predominantly Shia town of al-Aziziya, also wounding dozens of people.
The raid on the health ministry took place on Thursday morning.
New pressure on Mehdi Army
Iraqi officials say US and Iraqi troops broke down doors in the ministry's offices in central Baghdad in their search for Mr Zamili.
The minister and some of his guards were arrested.
Mr Sadr's group accused the US of provocation and urged the government to take immediate action to free the official.
"They are trying to drag the Sadrist movement to a confrontation. How else would arresting a deputy health minister without an arrest warrant be read," Abdel Mahdi al-Matiri, an official in Mr Sadr's movement, told Reuters news agency.
When the Madhi Army strikes, it's going to be ugly
The theory of pessimists
Let's see which if the Republicans up for re-election in 2008 voted against debating the Iraq surge: Lamar Alexander (R-TN) Lookit here -- Chuck Hagel once again proves he's all talk, but when it comes time for action, he buckles. Susan Collins of Maine and Norm Coleman of Minnesota both buckled to political reality -- they'll both be axed in 2008. But the rest of these guys? Dole, Warner, Cornyn, Smith (!), McConnell, Sununu, Demonici, Chambliss -- we'll make you regret this vote in 2008. This was always the GOP's war, but now more than ever. Not a single Democrat voted against cloture. Well, Harry Reid did, but that's a procedural step that allows him to bring up the legislation again at a later date. That's why we used to always see Bill Frist voting with Democrats every time the Dems defeated legislation in the the old Republican Senate. Lieberman, of course, voted with his soul mates on the wrong side of the aisle. Republicans are so far gone on the issue, that Warner and Hagel voted to prevent debate on their own resolution. So this "non-binding resolution" wasn't as useless as I thought. Now, we can beat Republicans over this vote for the next two years. Send them a big "thank you" present. Because of the Senate filibuster and presidential veto, It's near impossible for Democrats to end this war. But what we can and do, and should do, is keep bringing up these resolutions. Bring them all up -- the Kennedy measure, the Dodd measure, the Obama measure, and anything else lying around. Bring them up and keep forcing Republicans to stand with Bush in support of this war. Because in 2008, we'll elect people who WILL end this war, from the White House, to the Senate, to the House. And the more Republicans obstruct even the most toothless "non-binding" half-measures to express disapproval on the war, the more the American people will see who will prolong the quagmire, and who will work to end it. Labels: Iraq, Shia, US Army, washington
Republicans refuse to debate Iraq surge
by kos
Mon Feb 05, 2007 at 04:37:36 PM PST
Saxby Chambliss (R-GA)
Thad Cochran (R-MS)
John Cornyn (R-TX)
Larry Craig (R-ID)
Elizabeth Dole (R-NC)
Pete Domenici (R-NM)
Mike Enzi (R-WY)
Lindsey Graham (R-SC)
Chuck Hagel (R-NE)
Jim Inhofe (R-OK)
Mitch McConnell (R-KY)
Pat Roberts (R-KS)
Jeff Sessions (R-AL)
Gordon Smith (R-OR)
Ted Stevens (R-AK)
John Sununu (R-NH)
John Warner (R-VA)
I think people misunderstand how I feel about the war. I am a pessimist, the worst will happen.
All this talk about electing people to end the war is so much nonsense to me. We don't have the luxury of time, we never did, but the recent Sunni offensive in Baghdad speeds things up. Even among the left, people assume that the American army can control things for two years.
I consider that foolish thinking. Sadr has reigned in his people and the Shia have paid for it in blood. That will not last forever.
The assumption is that we can keep things together and I don't think that is the case. The US Army is on a time clock which ends before 2008. It's falling apart as we speak. It has unreliable allies.
I don't disagree with Kos, nailing the Republicans is always good. But I think by June, it will be totally irrelevant. We will have far more pressing problems in Iraq than to worry about what Congress dpoes.
The war at home
Fabrizio Costantini for The New York Times
The Islamic Center of America in Detroit was
vandalized in January.
Iraq’s Shadow Widens Sunni-Shiite Split in U.S.
By NEIL MacFARQUHAR
Published: February 4, 2007
DEARBORN, Mich. — Twice recently, vandals have shattered windows at three mosques and a dozen businesses popular among Shiite Muslims along Warren Avenue, the spine of the Arab community here.
Although the police have arrested no one, most in Dearborn’s Iraqi Shiite community blame the Sunni Muslims.
“The Shiites were very happy that they killed Saddam, but the Sunnis were in tears,” Aqeel Al-Tamimi, 34, an immigrant Iraqi truck driver and a Shiite, said as he ate roasted chicken and flatbread at Al-Akashi restaurant, one of the establishments damaged over the city line in Detroit. “These people look at us like we sold our country to America.”
Escalating tensions between Sunnis and Shiites across the Middle East are rippling through some American Muslim communities, and have been blamed for events including vandalism and student confrontations. Political splits between those for and against the American invasion of Iraq fuel some of the animosity, but it is also a fight among Muslims about who represents Islam.
Long before the vandalism in Dearborn and Detroit, feuds had been simmering on some college campuses. Some Shiite students said they had faced repeated discrimination, like being formally barred by the Sunni-dominated Muslim Student Association from leading prayers. At numerous universities, Shiite students have broken away from the association, which has dozens of chapters nationwide, to form their own groups.
“A microcosm of what is happening in Iraq happened in New Jersey because people couldn’t put aside their differences,” said Sami Elmansoury, a Sunni Muslim and former vice president of the Islamic Society at Rutgers University, where there has been a sharp dispute.
Though the war in Iraq is one crucial cause, some students and experts on sectarianism also attribute the fissure to the significant growth in the Muslim American population over the past few decades.
Yeah, I guess that idea of fighting them over there didn't work so well. They're now fighting each other over here.
The Bush catastrophe
Labels: Iraq, Iraqi Army, JAM, Shia, US Army
The militia's dayjob
There's a post on Kos about impeachment which misses the reality of the situation. If you try to impeach Bush, you better have the votes, and they aren't even close.
But I don't think impeachment matters.
If you look at the stories posted in the last TWO days, it's clear that the "surge" will not only fail, but may be crminal in it's outcome.
The core of Bush's plan is to have the US and Iraqis work together, but under split command. Of course, this violates every rule of war and common sense. Unity of command is what they teach you in school.
But it's even worse that that. Bush, or more correctly, Cheney, live in a fantasy land where the Iraqi Army works. It so doesn't work, it's hard to describe. They can't even feed the Army.
Guess who does?
Moqtada Al-Sadr.
In a month where US and Iraqi forces have been fighting up and down Haifa Street within site of the Green Zone, Petraeus wants to stick US and Iraqi forces in buildings to control neighborhoods.
When the Special Forces did this in Vietnam, they hired Nung mercenaries to guard their compounds, because they didn't trust the Vietnamese.
Our forces will have no such luck.
They will be expected to share DeLattre forts with people who they don't command and shouldn't trust.
In all the money spent on the Iraqi Army, how was food forgotten. How can US commanders watch them get food from JAM without realizing how this could risk the lives of their men
I think if the VC fed ARVN troops, people would have freaked.
People are worried about Iran, resolutions.
None of that matters.
Because as current plans stand, a US unit will be massacred by an Iraqi unit they are serving with.
At that point, there will be zero support for the war and the president,
No shit
Labels: Iraq, mahdi army, Shia, US Army
David Gilkey/Detroit Free Press
Dude, wouldn't you like two paychecks?
Mahdi Army gains strength through unwitting aid of U.S.
By Tom Lasseter
McClatchy NewspapersBAGHDAD, Iraq - The U.S. military drive to train and equip Iraq's security forces has unwittingly strengthened anti-American Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army militia, which has been battling to take over much of the capital city as American forces are trying to secure it.
How long has this been posted on this blog? Two years? Three?
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."
................................
His recruits began flooding into the Iraqi army and police, receiving training, uniforms and equipment either directly from the U.S. military or from the American-backed Iraqi Defense Ministry.
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.
............................
Iraqi soldiers, for example, often were pushed into the field by Iraqi commanders who didn't give them adequate food, clothing or shelter, said Etienne, a 1st Infantry Division platoon leader.
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.
"Who's feeding the Iraqi army? Nobody. So JAM will come around and give them food and water," Etienne said. "We try to capture hearts and minds, well, JAM has done that. They're further along than us."
............................i
A patrol from Etienne's company stopped by a Sunni neighborhood in east Baghdad last week. Two days earlier, three 60 mm mortar rounds fired from a nearby Shiite area, presumably by al-Sadr's militiamen, had hit a group of children who were playing on a rooftop. Two children died, and another lost most of a leg. A funeral tent stood empty in the middle of the street.
A soldier with a U.S. Army tactical human-intelligence team - who goes only by his last name, Brady, because of the sensitivity of his work - gathered a group of Sunni men to ask about neighborhood security.
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."
Brady didn't contradict any of the accounts. He took careful notes, shaking his head sympathetically at their stories of an Iraqi army gone astray.
He handed out a business card with a cell phone number to call in case of another Mahdi Army attack.
"We will send Iraqi army units that we trust," Brady said.
Abbas al Dulaimi stared at Brady, a blond man sitting in a circle of Iraqis, and spoke as if he were explaining something to a child.
"But if the Mahdi Army comes in here," Abbas al Dulaimi said, "they will come with the support of the Iraqi army."
Brady didn't contradict him.
Someone asked if they would give up their cell phones for Sadr.
I think that has been answered.
I wonder if someone on the Hill will raise this in a hearing.
When the crazies strike
Missteps by Iraqi Forces in Battle Raise Questions
By MARC SANTORA
Published: January 30, 2007BAGHDAD, Jan. 29 —Iraqi forces were surprised and nearly overwhelmed by the ferocity of an obscure renegade militia in a weekend battle near the holy city of Najaf and needed far more help from American forces than previously disclosed, American and Iraqi officials said Monday.
They said American ground troops — and not just air support as reported Sunday — were mobilized to help the Iraqi soldiers, who appeared to have dangerously underestimated the strength of the militia, which calls itself the Soldiers of Heaven and had amassed hundreds of heavily armed fighters.
Iraqi government officials said the group apparently was preparing to storm Najaf, a holy city dear to Shiite Islam, occupy the sacred Imam Ali mosque and assassinate the religious hierarchy there, including the revered leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, during a Shiite holiday when many pilgrims visit.
“This group had more capabilities than the government,” said Abdul Hussein Abtan, the deputy governor of Najaf Province, at a news conference.
Only a month ago, in an elaborate handover ceremony, the American command transferred security authority over Najaf to the Iraqis. The Americans said at the time that they would remain available to assist the Iraqis in the event of a crisis.
The Iraqis and Americans eventually prevailed in the battle. But the Iraqi security forces’ miscalculations about the group’s strength and intentions raised troubling questions about their ability to recognize and deal with a threat.
The battle also brought into focus the reality that some of the power struggles in Iraq are among Shiites, not just between Shiites and Sunnis. The Soldiers of Heaven is considered to be at least partly or wholly run by Shiites.
Among the troubling questions raised is how hundreds of armed men were able to set up such an elaborate encampment, which Iraqi officials said included tunnels, trenches and a series of blockades, only 10 miles northeast of Najaf. After the fight was over, Iraqi officials said they discovered at least two antiaircraft weapons as well as 40 heavy machine guns.
All fall apart
VACATED Sunni areas in the Baghdad
neighborhood of Mansour began emptying
out six months ago. Many businesses have
closed down on this once-bustling shopping street.
It Has Unraveled So Quickly
By SABRINA TAVERNISE
Published: January 28, 2007A PAINFUL measure of just how much Iraq has changed in the four years since I started coming here is contained in my cellphone. Many numbers in the address book are for Iraqis who have either fled the country or been killed. One of the first Sunni politicians: gunned down. A Shiite baker: missing. A Sunni family: moved to Syria.
I first came to Iraq in April 2003, at the end of the looting several weeks after the American invasion. In all, I have spent 22 months here, time enough for the place, its people and their ever-evolving tragedy to fix itself firmly in my heart.
Now, as I am leaving Iraq, a new American plan is unfolding in the capital. It feels as if we have come back to the beginning. Boots are on the ground again. Boxy Humvees move in the streets. Baghdad fell in 2003 and we are still trying to pick it back up. But Iraq is a different country now.
The moderates are mostly gone. My phone includes at least a dozen entries for middle-class families who have given up and moved away. They were supposed to build democracy here. Instead they work odd jobs in Syria and Jordan. Even the moderate political leaders have left. I have three numbers for Adnan Pachachi, the distinguished Iraqi statesman; none have Iraqi country codes.
Neighborhoods I used to visit a year ago with my armed guards and my black abaya are off limits. Most were Sunni and had been merely dangerous. Now they are dead. A neighborhood that used to be Baghdad’s Upper East Side has the dilapidated, broken feel of a city just hit by a hurricane.
The Iraqi government and the political process, which seemed to have great promise a year ago, have soured. Deeply damaged from years of abuse under Saddam Hussein, the Shiites who run the government have themselves turned into abusers.
Never having covered a civil war before, I learned about it together with my Iraqi friends. It is a bit like watching a slow-motion train wreck. Broken bodies fly past. Faces freeze in one’s memory in the moments before impact. Passengers grab handles and doorframes that simply tear off or uselessly collapse.
I learned how much violence changes people, and how trust is chipped away, leaving society a thin layer of moth-eaten fabric that tears easily. It has unraveled so quickly. A year ago, my interviews were peppered with phrases like “Iraqis are all brothers.” The subjects would get angry when you asked their sect. Now some of them introduce themselves that way.
I met Raad Jassim, a 38-year-old Shiite refugee, in a largely empty house, recently owned by Sunnis, where he now lives in western Baghdad. He moved there in the fall, after Sunni militants killed his brother and his nephew and confiscated his large chicken farm north of Baghdad. He had lived with Sunnis his whole life, but after what happened, a hatred spread through him like a disease.
“The word Sunni, it hurts me,” he said, sitting on the floor in a bare room, his 7-year-old boy on his lap. “All that I have lost came from this word. I try to avoid mixing with them.”
“A volcano of revenge” has built up inside him, he said. “I want to rip them up with my teeth.”
That plan isn't looking too good
Labels: guerrillas, Iraq, Shia
'If they pay we kill them anyway' - the kidnapper's story
In the second of two remarkable dispatches from behind Baghdad's front lines, Ghaith Abdul-Ahad meets the commander of a Shia death squad
Saturday January 27, 2007
The GuardianFadhel is a slim, well-muscled 26-year-old Mahdi Army commander with a thin goatee beard and smoothed down hair that looks like a flat cap. One day last month he described how he and his men seized a group of three Sunni men suspected of killing his fellow Shia. "I followed the group for weeks and then one of them crossed the bridge to Karrada [a Shia district]. We first informed a nearby Iraqi army checkpoint that we were arresting terrorists then we attacked them and put them in the boots of the cars. We only have six to seven minutes when we grab someone - we have to act quickly, if he resists we shoot him."
In this case, he said, the men were taken to Sadr City, the Shia slum to the north-east of Baghdad, where they were interrogated by a "committee" which ordered their execution. "We ask the families of the terrorists for ransom money," said Fadhel. "And after they pay the ransom we kill them anyway."
Kidnapping in Baghdad these days is as much about economics as retribution or sectarian hatred. Another Shia man close to the Mahdi Army told me: "They kidnap 10 Sunnis, they get ransom on five, and kill them all, in each big kidnap operation they make at least $50 000, it's the best business in Baghdad."
One day as we chatted in a small squatters' community to the east of Baghdad, Fadhel showed me his badge - a square laminated card that identified him as a "Amer Faseel" or "platoon commander" in charge of a unit of around 35 fighters. He is particularly valuable to the Shia militia because he grew up in a predominantly Sunni area south of Baghdad and still has an ID card registered in the Sunni town of Yossufiya. "I can speak in their accent, so I can come and go to Sunni areas without anyone knowing that I am a Shia."
It was these qualifications plus his military experience - he was a corporal in the Iraqi military police - that earned Fadhel the role of commanding a "strike unit". His main job is kidnapping Sunnis allegedly involved in attacking Shia areas. It is men like Fadhel, responsible for the scores of bodies dumped on Baghdad's streets daily, whom the US troops pouring into Baghdad will have to bring under control if they are to have any hope of quelling the city's civil war.
Fadhel is also called Sayed, a title given to men who descend from the Prophet Muhammad. Over glasses of hot sweet tea, he told me how his family of farmers, originally from the Shia stronghold of Najaf, had resettled in the 70s in the heart of the Sunni area south of Baghdad where he went to school with Sunni and Shia kids.
A year after Baghdad fell, his family had to move again; the area had become a hub for Sunni extremists who started evicting Shia families a year earlier than their comrades in Baghdad. After a neighbouring Shia farmer was killed they packed up and moved to Baghdad: "We had 15 donums of the best land, I was born there and worked there all my life. They told us you Shia are not from here, go away."
Fadhel and his family found themselves in the squatters' compound in east Baghdad. He and his brother joined the Mahdi Army and fought against the Americans in Sadr City and Karbala. Now he lives in a small rented flat in Dora, once a mixed Sunni area but now one of the main battle fronts in this sectarian war. To gather intelligence, he set out to make Sunni friends: "I live with them, pray like them, I even insult the imams and the Mahdi Army."
Fadhel and other Mahdi Army commanders describe an intimate relationship with Iraqi security services, especially the commandos of the Iraqi interior ministry. He says the Mahdi Army often uses these official forces in conducting its own operations against Sunni "terrorists".
"We have specific units that we work with where members of the Mahdi Army are in command. We conduct operations together. We can't ask any army unit to come with us, we just ask the units that are under the control of our men.
"The police are all under our control, we ask them to help or inform them that shooting will take place in a street and it involves the Mahdi Army, and that's it."