Basra op chiefs removed; police Iraqis desert

[Simplicius]

ISF incompetence, now with more comedy value:

April 17, 2008
Desertion or a Break? An Iraqi Gives His Side
By MICHAEL KAMBER

BAGHDAD — He was not deserting his men, the Iraqi Army captain insisted Wednesday. He had left his 70 soldiers in the midst of a battle in Sadr City the day before to take his long-overdue three-day break.

The captain, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals, said he intended to extend the break to five days, maybe longer. He had not been paid in two months and was overwhelmed by the problems of commanding his company, part of the 1st Brigade, 11th Iraqi Army Division. He was considering not going back to the fight in Sadr City.

Desertion by Iraqi soldiers has been a problem during the recent battles in Basra and Sadr City. The government dismissed 1,300 soldiers and police officers who deserted last month during fighting in Basra. On Tuesday, another company walked away from a crucial part of the front line in Sadr City, contending that they did not have adequate support.

Five years into the American effort to build a self-sustaining Iraqi Army, these failures to stand and fight have proven an embarrassing setback to American and Iraqi officials.

The captain who left his men on Tuesday said that even away from the battle, he was not able to escape his army burdens. He said his phone rang incessantly. His men had called from the front line saying that, once again, they had run out of ammunition and they pleaded for help. He called another unit in Sadr City and arranged for ammunition to be transferred.

Then his phone had rung again, he said. It was the Mahdi Army militia, the group his men were fighting, on the line.

“We know where you live,” they had told him.

“If they come to my house, they can kill my whole family,” he said.

On the phone they had read a roster of names of the men in his battalion. “I don’t even have access to that,” he said. “They could only have gotten it from my senior commanders.

“Our senior officials, they are thieves,” he said.

He was walking around with a bullet in the chamber of his pistol, ready to be attacked at any moment.

The American plan has been to let the Iraqis lead the fight, with United States soldiers in a support role. But the Iraqi captain said his men were no match for the more heavily armed militia: “The Mahdi Army, they have much better equipment than we do.”

He said most of his men had only two 30-round ammunition magazines each, magazines that sell for less than $12 on the streets of Baghdad.

“During the battle, my soldiers’ bullets are finished and they have to stop fighting,” he said. While the militia has mortars, rocket-propelled grenades and heavy machine guns, he said, “Three of my six machine guns are not working, and I have no mortars.”

Worst of all, he said, were the improvised explosive devices that lined the sidewalks and streets and that had peppered his men with shrapnel.

His company was below half-strength and shrinking by the day. It was down to 70 men from a normal roster of 150. Five had been wounded in the past week, others had been lent to another company. And then there was the desertion problem, made worse by the threatening phone calls from the Mahdi Army to his men.

“Most of my soldiers have family inside Sadr City,” he said. “Their tribes and cousins and relatives are there. They can’t fight in Sadr City.”

Asked about the company that had deserted on Tuesday, he was sympathetic.

“That commander is accusing that company of being deserters,” he said. “But he’s not there in the fight. My company, too, we were alone, surrounded and fighting for three hours on Monday night. No one came to help us. My men are dispirited. Their mood is very down. I try to praise them, to tell them they are doing well, to encourage them.”

As much as he did not want to leave his men, he was not sure he would return to them.

“It is very hard; I’m thinking of resigning,” he said.

"Yeah I don't know guys, I've got some vacation time coming up..."

[MKSheppard]

What a difference a month makes - Times of UK

April 25, 2008
What a difference a month makes . . .
Richard Beeston, Foreign Editor

When Nouri al-Maliki launched his surprise attack against the main Shia militia in Basra, the operation appeared to be a disastrous miscalculation pitting inexperienced Iraqi soldiers against well-armed and battle-hardened street-fighters of the Mahdi Army.

Scores of soldiers defected from their ranks. Iraqi armoured vehicles were ambushed and destroyed by jubilant militiamen. An American general and several hundred US paratroopers had to race down to Iraq’s southern capital to rescue the operation with British forces offering air cover and logistical help.

The Iraqi Prime Minister, accused like his predecessor of indecision and a failure to tackle the pressing security problems facing his country, had taken personal control of the operation. It emerged that he ordered the assault weeks ahead of a more carefully planned offensive in conjunction with American and British advisers. Some predicted that the military blunder signalled the end of his unimpressive period in office.

One month on and Iraq’s leader can justifiably claim to have scored a stunning victory, probably the first of its kind by the post-Saddam Iraqi army. The most notorious areas of Basra are now under government control, the Mahdi Army of Moqtadr al-Sadr has been roundly defeated and the long suffering people of Basra are celebrating freedoms they did not enjoy during the four years of British military rule in the city.

So how did a military novice, using untested troops, succeed where thousands of British forces had failed?

The hint came at the weekend from the unlikely figure of Hassan Kazemi Qumi, the Iranian ambassador to Baghdad, whose country has in the past armed, funded and trained elements of the Mahdi Army.

“The idea of the government in Basra was to fight outlaws,” said the envoy. “This was the right of the government and the responsibility of the government. And in my opinion the government was able to achieve a positive result in Basra.” The Iranian embassy in Baghdad is not given to making any public statements, certainly not comments that support operations backed by the Great Satan, as America is called in Iran. But in the arcane world of Shia politics his comments made perfect sense.

While British forces were in Basra city, it was in Tehran’s interests to drive them out by backing various militias that would help consolidate Iran’s control over Iraq’s second city, the country’s only access to the sea and a region containing its largest oil reserves.

But once the British withdrew from the city centre to Basra airport last summer, the situation changed. Suddenly it was Moqtadr al-Sadr and his rag-tag fighters who were the dominant force in the Basra region. The Iranian backed Badr Organisation, which is well represented in Iraq’s police and military, was sidelined. There were real fears that the Sadrists could consolidate their gains on the ground in local elections planned for October and eclipse the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, Badr’s political wing.

For once the interests of America, Britain, Iran and the Iraqi government coincided with disastrous results for Mr al-Sadr and his fighters. Isolated and abandoned they fled, were captured or killed from what were once their impregnable fiefdoms in Basra. Mr al-Sadr was left to lick his wounds and complain that the Government had forgotten that they were all “brothers”.

The victory demonstrated what can happen in even the most lawless regions of Iraq when the main external forces, in this case America and Iran, act with common purpose.

Unfortunately, there is little evidence that the Basra example will be repeated any time soon. In Baghdad, US forces are currently engaged in an identical battle against Mahdi Army irregulars concentrated in their Sadr City stronghold. In response to US air strikes, the militia is firing Iranian-made rockets and mortars into the Green Zone, the heavily fortified area containing the US and British embassies.

The combatants may be the same as those fighting in Basra, but the political circumstances are completely different. In Baghdad it seems Iran wants the Mahdi Army to continue to have a piece of the Iraqi capital and a stake in the politics of the city.

The Iranian ambassador condemned America’s use of force in Baghdad and gave warning that it would lead to further bloodshed and more destruction. For now at least, his predictions have come true.

[Illuminatus Primus]

Wow, so those "Shia terror groups" were political militias by the remaining Shia Iraqi nationalist, and we put our influence to prop up Iran's man in Baghdad? Such a great victory this is.

[Kanastrous]

Muqtada al Sadr, the Leader of the Mahdi Army, has called for his fighters to lay down their weapons and cooperate with Iraqi security forces. Sadr’s call for an end to the fighting comes as his Mahdi Army has taken serious losses since the operation began.

What I find puzzling and maddening about this, is that more than once before Sadr's been indulged to play this game: draw a real fight on himself, lose for a little while, call for a cease fire - presumably to conserve his people and resources and set up the next fight - and be rewarded with one.

Can't his willingness to cry 'hold' be interpreted as a sign that it's time to go for his throat?

[SirNitram]

Muqtada al Sadr, the Leader of the Mahdi Army, has called for his fighters to lay down their weapons and cooperate with Iraqi security forces. Sadr’s call for an end to the fighting comes as his Mahdi Army has taken serious losses since the operation began.

What I find puzzling and maddening about this, is that more than once before Sadr's been indulged to play this game: draw a real fight on himself, lose for a little while, call for a cease fire - presumably to conserve his people and resources and set up the next fight - and be rewarded with one.

Can't his willingness to cry 'hold' be interpreted as a sign that it's time to go for his throat?

Would work, except for the fact Maliki's own party came, hat in hand, to Iran to request it of him. With an Iran Quds General mediating, by some accounts! It's not Sadr whose being 'rewarded'. It's Maliki. He gets to act all tough while he still has Americans to use like toy soldiers.

[Simplicius]

If ISCI/Dawa wins in Basra, Iran wins in Basra. ISCI has been a consistent proponent of strong provinces and a weak federal government, and has proposed that a semiautonomous "Shi'astan" of nine provinces south of Baghdad be formed. Since ISCI was formed in Iran and accepts the Iranian style of wilayat al-faqih, any semiautonomous region under ISCI control would be closely aligned with Iran. Even without that semiautonomous region, which is not a popular notion, ISCI domination of the south will be a source of Iranian influence.

The unconfirmed report that Basra's governor was placed under house arrest during the operation, if accurate, further supports the story of an ISCI power grab disguised as a crackdown, as ISCI was the largest winner of the 2005 election, but was outmaneuvered by Fadhila, which formed a coalition with two smaller parties, gained a one-seat lead on the council, and so was able to elect the governor. Both ISCI and the OMS contested this by lawsuits and assassination attempts; current reporting suggests that Fadhila - with the OMS, another opponent of ISCI's proposed federal region - has also been significantly weakened by the operation.

Sadr is a useful tool to harass the US and to keep Maliki et al. from straying too far from Iran, but because his movement is nationalist and populist and because he favors a strong central government over federalism, he offers the Iranians little - to try to turn all of Iraq, with its vehemently anti-Iranian Sunnis, into a puppet state would not be worth while. This is why he fights on in Baghdad but was reined in in Basra.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

This is ridiculous. Taking sides one after another, especially when none of these sides are guaranteed to stay true to their promises. In the end it would be back to bloody square one.

[Pelranius]

At least that bloody thief Chalabi isn't too much in the picture anymore.

Now I hope we continue to pay those Awakening folks not to fight us.

[Ryan Thunder]

Now I hope we continue to pay those Awakening folks not to fight us.

I understand that its a good thing they aren't fighting us, but wouldn't it be better to hope that we simply obliterated them?

Then we wouldn't be paying them any sort of ridiculous "please don't kill me" tax...

[Simplicius]

I understand that its a good thing they aren't fighting us, but wouldn't it be better to hope that we simply obliterated them?

Then we wouldn't be paying them any sort of ridiculous "please don't kill me" tax...

And how, pray, would that be conducive to a strategic outcome of a less violent Iraq?

Bear two things in mind: 1) Many of the Sahwa are people we already fought and couldn't eliminate, i.e. Sunni insurgents, and 2) These are people who accepted money to fight first from AQI or other insurgent groups and now accept money from us because they have no other substantial livelihood.

Despite all the problems that the Sahwa currently present, they do not exceed those that would be caused by dumping a lot of underemployed armed men with lingering grudges and a loathing for all that is Iranian - including anyone who looks like a collaborator - into 'free agency.'

[SirNitram]

At least that bloody thief Chalabi isn't too much in the picture anymore.

Now I hope we continue to pay those Awakening folks not to fight us.

Ah, mercenaries. Pay them a minor fortune to fight, pay them a major fortune to stop fighting.

[Ryan Thunder]

I understand that its a good thing they aren't fighting us, but wouldn't it be better to hope that we simply obliterated them?

Then we wouldn't be paying them any sort of ridiculous "please don't kill me" tax...

And how, pray, would that be conducive to a strategic outcome of a less violent Iraq?

By removing the ones that are initiating the violence from the picture rather than simply keeping them at bay.

Least, that's what I figure, anyways. They can't set up IEDs or bomb mosques if they're dead, can they?

Bear two things in mind: 1) Many of the Sahwa are people we already fought and couldn't eliminate, i.e. Sunni insurgents, and 2) These are people who accepted money to fight first from AQI or other insurgent groups and now accept money from us because they have no other substantial livelihood.

Well, that certainly puts things in a different light.

My understanding was that they were fighting because they figured they could drive the Americans off or something.

If that's their motivation, then I guess paying them isn't such a bad solution. Better on the Americans' payroll than the enemy's.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

By removing the ones that are initiating the violence from the picture rather than simply keeping them at bay.

Least, that's what I figure, anyways. They can't set up IEDs or bomb mosques if they're dead, can they?

You aren't that naive to believe there isn't someone else to take revenge are you? Or would you like to obliterate all of Iraq instead?

Well, that certainly puts things in a different light.

My understanding was that they were fighting because they figured they could drive the Americans off or something.

If that's their motivation, then I guess paying them isn't such a bad solution. Better on the Americans' payroll than the enemy's.

Don't expect them to like the America too much. The original motivation was that they regarded the Shia and Americans as their enemies. They only collaborate now with the Americans because it suits their purposes to do so. They don't seem to be too disinclined to bite the hand that feeds them when that hand starts to feed them crap.

[Ryan Thunder]

By removing the ones that are initiating the violence from the picture rather than simply keeping them at bay.

Least, that's what I figure, anyways. They can't set up IEDs or bomb mosques if they're dead, can they?

You aren't that naive to believe there isn't someone else to take revenge are you? Or would you like to obliterate all of Iraq instead?

I don't understand why there would be a large 'revenge' factor to consider. If my cousin goes and attacks a police officer, I'm not going to hate the police for shooting back...

This doesn't mean I would shrug it off, either. Credit goes where its due, however, and if the militia is attacking American troops, their blood is on their own hands.

Well, that certainly puts things in a different light.

My understanding was that they were fighting because they figured they could drive the Americans off or something.

If that's their motivation, then I guess paying them isn't such a bad solution. Better on the Americans' payroll than the enemy's.

Don't expect them to like the America too much. The original motivation was that they regarded the Shia and Americans as their enemies. They only collaborate now with the Americans because it suits their purposes to do so. They don't seem to be too disinclined to bite the hand that feeds them when that hand starts to feed them crap.

Which takes us back to where we started. Why would the Americans want to coexist with an organization that hates them, has attacked them recently, and lacks any sort of deterrent?

[Simplicius]

I don't understand why there would be a large 'revenge' factor to consider. If my cousin goes and attacks a police officer, I'm not going to hate the police for shooting back...

This doesn't mean I would shrug it off, either. Credit goes where its due, however, and if the militia is attacking American troops, their blood is on their own hands.

If you had paid attention to the dynamics of Iraq after the invasion, you would see revenge playing a significant role. Consider: a Sunni insurgency arose in response to the United States' characterization of the Sunnis and ex-leadership as Enemy #1 after the fall of Saddam. Sectarian violence exploded in 2006 when Shi'a began taking systematic revenge on Sunnis for the bombings of the Sammara mosque by some Sunni insurgent group (perhaps AQI).

If the US were to suddenly crack down on Sunnis which is currently pays, equips, and (half-assedly) advocates to the central government, why wouldn't the Sunnis fight back? When the choice is resistance or elimination, Iraqi factions have chosen resistance time and again.

Which takes us back to where we started. Why would the Americans want to coexist with an organization that hates them, has attacked them recently, and lacks any sort of deterrent?

The Awakenings were an unexpected tactical opportunity. AQI lost a fair amount of support from Sunnis at large after Zarqawi was killed, because their next commander was a dick, and a foreigner, and a bean counter. By the time he started attacking Sunnis who he felt were unreliable, and a few other unpopular moves, Sunnis in Anbar decided that playing along with AQI wasn't helping them any and they started to resist. The US, which was operating under the new kinder, gentler counterinsurgency doctrine, felt that if it could capitalize on Sunni hostility to al Qaeda, great strides in violence reduction and loyalty building could be made. So it started employing Sunnis to help clear AQI out of their own towns as a sort of local security force. For the time being, it has worked - AQI has been mostly squeezed northward, and especially out of Anbar, and meanwhile Sunnis that are on the US' payroll have to at least pretend that they aren't insurgents laying low and biding their time for the US to leave so they can go back to attacking Shi'a.

Short version: Sahwa = tactical success, but = strategic failure. The US has for better or worse pegged itself to Maliki and his government, but it is funding armed groups who don't like or trust Maliki, don't like or trust the government, and aren't liked or trusted by Maliki and the government either.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

I don't understand why there would be a large 'revenge' factor to consider. If my cousin goes and attacks a police officer, I'm not going to hate the police for shooting back...

This doesn't mean I would shrug it off, either. Credit goes where its due, however, and if the militia is attacking American troops, their blood is on their own hands.

Cycles of revenge occur when there is no recourse for justice, and people take matters into your own hands. You on the other hand, have a recourse, they don't. They have a state that is consistently belligerent towards them and as such, regards them as enemies of the state. Seriously, quit thinking as a American and think as a Sunni Iraqi before making dimwitted remarks.

Which takes us back to where we started. Why would the Americans want to coexist with an organization that hates them, has attacked them recently, and lacks any sort of deterrent?

You should ask your own government, which has a historical knack for backing the wrong horses. Practically everyone in Iraq has some reason to dislike the US, except the Kurds, who ironically are disliked by the rest of Iraq.

[MKSheppard]

Link

April 25, 2008
The men in black vanish and Basra comes to life

The first Western journalist to enter the city since Operation Charge of the Knights was launched a month ago

Young women are daring to wear jeans, soldiers listen to pop music on their mobile phones and bands are performing at wedding parties again.

All across Iraq’s second city life is improving, a month after Iraqi troops began a surprise crackdown on the black-clad gangs who were allowed to flourish under the British military. The gunmen’s reign had enforced a strict set of religious codes.

Yet after three years of being terrified of kidnap, rape and murder – a fate that befell scores of other women – Nadyia Ahmed, 22, is among those enjoying a sense of normality, happy for the first time to attend her science course at Basra University. “I now have the university life that I heard of at high school before the war and always dreamt about,” she told The Times. “It was a nightmare because of these militiamen. I only attended class three days a week but now I look forward to going every day.”

She also no longer has to wear a headscarf. Under the strict Islamic rules imposed by the militias, women had to cover their hair, could not wear jeans or bright clothes and were strictly forbidden from sitting next to male colleagues on pain of death.

“All these men in black [who imposed the laws] just vanished from the university after this operation,” said Ms Ahmed. “Things have completely changed over the past week.”

In a sign of the good mood, celebratory gunfire erupted around Basra two nights ago and text messages were pinged from one mobile phone to another after an alleged senior militia leader was arrested.

Raids are continuing in a few remaining strongholds but the Iraqi commander in charge of the unprecedented operation is confident that his forces will soon achieve something that the British military could not – a city free from rogue gunmen.

British and US officials acknowledge tentatively that a turning point has been reached. Sir Richard Dannatt, the head of the British Army, made an unannounced visit to Basra over the weekend.

Local people are daring to hope that the dark days of death squads and kidnap are over, displaying the sort of optimism that was last seen when British forces arrived in 2003 with the false promise of a better life free from Saddam Hussein.

Driving through Basra in a convoy with the Iraqi general leading the Charge of the Knights operation, The Times passed Iraqi security forces manning checkpoints and patrolling the roads. Not a hostile shot was fired as the convoy turned into what was until the weekend the most notorious neighbourhood in the city. Hayaniya, a teeming slum, was a bastion for al-Mahdi Army, the main militia.

For the first time in four years local residents have been emboldened to stand up to the militants and are turning in caches of weapons. Army checkpoints have been erected across Basra and traffic police are also out in force.

The security forces have also torn down many banners supporting al-Mahdi Army as well as portraits of its leader, Moqtada al-Sadr, though some still remain in militia strongholds.

The contrast could not be more stark with the last time The Times visited Basra in December, when intimidation was rife.

Many blame the British for allowing the militias to grow. “If they sent competent Iraqi troops to Basra in the early stages it would have limited the damage that happened in our city,” said Hameed Hashim, 39, who works for the South Oil Company.

Lieutenant-General Mohan al-Furaiji, Basra’s outgoing commander, said that his goal was “to turn Basra into a safe city without any armed groups” within two months. Local authorities would then have to improve the standard of living for the people of Basra, a city of 2.5 million, where raw sewage runs down the streets and the unemployment rate is as high as 80 per cent, despite countless projects funded by the British Government.

“The army has achieved security . . . but people can’t just live with peace. This is a miserable city by all measures,” said General Furaiji, speaking at the Basra Operations Centre on the bank of the Shatt al-Arab waterway.

“We have given nothing to the people. Peace is vital but people can’t eat or drink peace,” he toldThe Times. Despite being an Iraqi-led operation, British and American soldiers are also embedded at the Shatt al-Arab Hotel, providing advice and expertise. Hundreds of British and American troops are on the ground alongside the Iraqis and coalition aircraft fly overhead.

Keen to demonstrate the new-found security, General Furaiji stopped his Humvee on the main street of largely boarded-up stores in Hayaniyah and ducked into a dilapidated coffee shop for a glass of Iraqi tea and a bread roll.

A cluster of young men ventured forward to speak to him, voicing concern about finding work rather than security fears. Ahmed Nassir Kassim, 23, said: “Before there were killings. Now it’s better. I would like the Government to look after the people and provide us with jobs.”

The neighbouring district of al-Qibla was similarly calm. Hussein Fadhil, a professional musician, runs a shop in the centre of the city that rents out musical instruments and has seven bands that he hires for weddings.

Musicians suffered greatly. Many were forced by the militia to abandon their trade or beaten up if they tried to perform. Weddings were affected, with couples being told not to play music. “Just two weeks ago if you passed a wedding party you would not be able to tell whether it was a wake or a wedding,” Mr Fadhil, 44, said. The tide has turned, however. Eleven band members who quit because of intimidation want their old jobs back and are receiving bookings for at least one party a day.

In a new sweep that began yesterday, seven Iraqi battalions entered a market area – one of three remaining militia bastions – where they found four large hauls of munitions.

In the past month Iraqi troops have killed dozens of fighters, made 400 arrests and lost 12 soldiers. At the same time, it is thought that about 60 militia leaders have escaped across the border into Iran or are lying low outside Basra, working out their next move.

The British military expressed cautious optimism at the progress. Major Tom Holloway, a spokesman, said: “The Iraqi security forces have made a real difference; this is going to be a long operation by its nature. However, rule of law is returning to the streets.”

Additional reporting by Ali Hamdani

[Illuminatus Primus]

We'll see if this lasts. I love how conservatives are so cynical and "realistic" about the prospects of social change in our own underclass and violent inner cities. But a month or two of changes in a different country, torn apart by ethnic hatred and religious sectarianism - all the optimism in the world.