US has ignored seven clear pointers to failure in Iraq

US has ignored seven clear pointers to failure

Bronwen Maddox: World Briefing


President Bush’s “surge” assumes that the Iraqi Government shares his goals, and that given a bit of help with security and a bit more time, they will get there together. That is wrong.

Nouri al-Maliki, the Prime Minister, is not quite the well-meaning but ineffective figure portrayed in Bush’s plan. He has done at least seven things in the past six months which show that he plans to help Shias to secure control of every part of government and has no notion of sharing power with Sunnis.


1. On October 24, when Zalmay Khalilzad, the US Ambassador, and General George Casey, the coalition commander, announced (with Bush’s backing) a new “timetable” for quelling the violence, al-Maliki denied that he had signed up to any such plan, a public rebuff to the US. Iraq was sovereign, he said, and no one was going to dictate timetables (nor does Bush’s plan this week venture to put dates on its targets for the Iraqi Government).


2. On October 25, US and Iraqi forces raided Sadr City, the stronghold of the militia led by the radical Shia Hojatoleslam Moqtada al-Sadr, whom the US blames for persecuting Sunnis and destabilising Iraq. Al-Maliki disavowed the operation, saying he had not been consulted and insisting “that it will not be repeated”.

More at the Times Online UK, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,11069-2543858,00.html