Moderators: Alyrium Denryle, Edi, K. A. Pital
The Pentagon on Wednesday said an eruption of violence in southern Iraq, where US-backed government forces were battling Shiite militias, was a “by-product of the success of the surge.”
Isn't this a tacit admission of the surge's failure, as it was one of the surge's goals to reduce violence?
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The Pentagon and the Truth parted company a long time ago.Wyrm wrote:The Pentagon on Wednesday said an eruption of violence in southern Iraq, where US-backed government forces were battling Shiite militias, was a “by-product of the success of the surge.”
"This medicine will keep you from dying, but as a side effect, it will kill you."
Well I for one would be interested in seeing a link to your final report. Careful analysis is always apreciated. As long as it isn't biasedSimplicius wrote: Assuming of course that I have my facts straight. I don't know how long this debate will go on, so I don't know just how much detailed material will out. I'm currently writing a report on the Iraq security situation for work* which I presume will be published online. If so, and if there's interest, I can provide a link or otherwise make the manuscript available. It won't be proprietary or restricted, at any rate.
(Not that I think that should be a problem)It won't go long at all. If I wanted it to go on I'd have to semantic whore the meaning of tribalism, which colloquially can refer to any group of people with kin ties, but anthropologically means much more. And the only evidence I have are articles from the mainstream media which frankly do not prove a kin war at all, any more than articles about blacks killing blacks in Manhattan prove tribalism rather than socio-economic isolation.Simplicius wrote:I don't know how long this debate will go on, so I don't know just how much detailed material will out.
On the contrary, your model violates Occam's Razor. If grievances from recent decades can explain the sectarian violence, then there is no need to invoke century-old intractable religious and tribal hatreds in order to explain what we've seen in Iraq. Therefore, any assumption of the primacy (or even significance) of these extra factors is yours to prove, not Simplicius' to disprove.brianeyci wrote:Sure I could go onto JSTOR or look for demographics of Iraqi cities, but you talk as if you already have an extensive handle on the history. Even if I did find it, you would dismiss it as "geography and habit." Moreover, you made very specific claims, rather than the vague one of tribalism that I made. If you have specific, enlightening information, such as maps, or statements of intent by the various factions, post, and I will gladly concede that my model was too simplistic.Simplicius wrote:The current segregation is the product of a wave of sectarian cleansing that swept Baghdad in the wake of the invasion, easily explainable as revenge by newly-empowered Shiite factions for decades of oppression under Hussein and a move by those factions to secure their position in power - again, hardly "ancient." Have you evidence of serious Sunni-Shiite segregation older than that that is attributable to more than geography and habit? Perhaps you should look at the historical demographics of Iraq's cities, if you can find the information.
BBC wrote:Curfew extended in Iraqi capital
Boy in house damaged in clashes, Sadr City, Baghdad, 29.03.08
Baghdad's Shia Sadr City area has seen heavy clashes
Baghdad's military command has extended a round-the clock curfew in the city for an indefinite period.
It was imposed on Thursday amid clashes between troops and Shia militias in Baghdad and elsewhere, and had been due to expire early on Sunday morning.
The extension came hours after radical Shia cleric Moqtada Sadr said his Mehdi Army militia would defy a government call to lay down its weapons.
Across Iraq, fighting has claimed more than 200 lives since Tuesday.
The BBC's Crispin Thorold in Baghdad says the curfew extension will damage the capital economically, as well as inconveniencing residents.
The initial imposition of the curfew was a sign of how badly security in Baghdad had deteriorated, he says.
Baghdad, particularly the Shia-dominated Sadr City area in the east of the city, has seen some of the worst violence in recent days, including a series of US air strikes on Friday.
Air strikes
The curfew extension came after a day of skirmishes between security forces and Shia militiamen in the southern city of Basra, where the current wave of unrest began.
Fierce gun battles were reported, while the UK military said US warplanes carried out two air strikes.
Iraqi police said an earlier US air strike killed eight people, although no independent confirmation was available.
Iraq map
Turkey hits rebel targets
British forces in the city fired artillery rounds on what they said were militia mortar positions - the first time they had directly joined the fighting since government forces launched the operation in Basra.
Iraqi forces have been trying to wrest control of the city and other Shia areas from the Mehdi Army.
In an interview, Moqtada Sadr said he would ignore the call by the Iraqi Prime Minister, Nouri Maliki, for his forces to surrender their weapons.
He said they would only be handed over to a government which could get the occupying forces out of Iraq.
Mr Maliki has extended an original three-day deadline, telling the fighters they had until 8 April to hand in their weapons in return for cash.
On Saturday the prime minister vowed that government troops will not leave Basra until "security is restored", describing the gunmen as "worse than al-Qaeda".
A man inspects a charred Iraqi army vehicle in Basra on 29 March
Iraqi soldiers have met fierce resistance in Basra
"We will continue to stand up to these gangs in every inch of Iraq," he said.
Meanwhile Al-Jazeera TV broadcast excerpts from an exclusive interview with Moqtada Sadr that it conducted hours before the beginning of the clashes on Tuesday.
Mr Sadr called on Arab and Muslims states and the UN to "recognise the legitimacy of resistance" and offer support to Iraqi to "drive the occupation forces out of its land".
Power struggle
Estimates vary of the number of deaths since the fighting broke out.
Health officials in Baghdad say at least 75 people have been killed while in Basra, the British military give a death toll of 50.
However, Basra medical sources report as many as 290 dead and an Iraqi army commander, Maj-Gen Ali Zaidan, said on Friday his forces had killed 120 "enemy" fighters there. He did not give casualty figures for his own soldiers.
Scores of people are believed to have been killed in other southern cities, according to Iraqi police or medical reports.
At least 44 people were killed in and around Kut, 15 in Nasiriya, 12 in Karbala and six in Hilla.
The fighting is blamed on a power struggle between rival Shia factions.
Moqtada Sadr's followers have in the past rebelled against the US-backed government, although the cleric's political bloc has backed Mr Maliki's ruling coalition.
A ceasefire by the Mehdi Army, in place since August 2007 and renewed in February, has been widely credited with reducing sectarian tensions and contributing to the recent overall drop in violence.
Correspondents say Moqtada Sadr's supporters fear the prime minister - also a Shia - wishes to weaken their movement before local elections due later this year.
If you were willing to go all the way it could work, ie. give one side 100% support to commit fullfledged genocide and ethnic cleansing against the other. It would be horrible and the entire world would scream, but in the end im pretty sure it would quiet down once one side had established itself as the dominant power.Fingolfin_Noldor wrote:Getting involved in Iraqi factional politics is a recipe for disaster. The minuter you favour one party for the other, you embolden the favoured faction to take liberties with their new found power, especially in such an environment.
And then you come back to square one. Repeat et infinitum. Yeah, great progress.
Apparently only to cease hostilities. His statement does call on his followers not to carry arms, but nothing about giving them up:Stas Bush wrote:Did he call for disarming, or merely to cease hostilities?
Reuters via Yahoo! NewsReuters wrote: NAJAF, Iraq (Reuters) - Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr called on his followers on Sunday to stop battling government forces after a week of fighting in Iraq's south and the capital threatened to spiral out of control.
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The government immediately welcomed Sadr's statement, saying it would help the authorities impose security in Iraq.
A government crackdown on Sadr's followers in the southern oil port of Basra has sparked an explosion of violence that risks undoing recent improvements in Iraq's fragile security and jeopardizing U.S. plans to withdraw troops.
"Because of the religious responsibility, and to stop Iraqi blood being shed ... we call for an end to armed appearances in Basra and all other provinces," Sadr said in a statement given to journalists by his aides in the holy Shi'ite city of Najaf.
"Anyone carrying a weapon and targeting government institutions will not be one of us," the statement said.
Sadr also called on the government to stop "random illegal arrests" of his followers and to implement an amnesty law passed by Iraq's parliament in February to free prisoners.
Sadr's Mehdi Army militia have complained that Iraqi and U.S. forces have exploited a truce called by the cleric last August to make indiscriminate arrests. The U.S. military says it only targets those who have disobeyed Sadr's ceasefire.
Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has ordered Shi'ite fighters in Basra to lay down their arms and has extended a 72-hour deadline until April 8 for them to turn over heavy and medium weapons in return for cash.
But a top aide to Sadr, Hazem al-Araji, said Mehdi Army fighters would not hand over their guns. He also said that Sadr's followers had received a guarantee from the government that it would end "random arrests" of Sadr followers.
"As the government of Iraq we welcome this statement," Maliki's spokesman, Ali al-Dabbagh, said in response to Sadr's comments. "We believe this will support the government of Iraq's efforts to impose security."
Maliki launched the military operation last Tuesday, vowing to reassert his government's control over Iraq's second city, which is dominated by various militias. So far only strongholds of Sadr's followers have been targeted.
The operation has sparked a furious backlash from Sadr's Mehdi Army, who believe Maliki and the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, his most powerful Shi'ite ally, are trying to crush them ahead of provincial elections due in October.
(Additional reporting by Waleed Ibrahim in Baghdad; Writing by Ross Colvin and Peter Graff; Editing by Samia Nakhoul)
