Muqtada's fight puts US to flight

Source: Inter Press Service

Muqtada's fight puts US to flight
By Gareth Porter

WASHINGTON - As it became clear last week that "Operation Knights Assault" in Basra in south Iraq was in serious trouble, the George W Bush administration began to claim in off-the-record statements to journalists that Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki had launched the operation without consulting Washington.

The effort to disclaim US responsibility for the operation in which government forces battled with the Shi'ite - Mahdi Army - militias is an indication that it was viewed as a major embarrassment just as top commander General David Petraeus and ambassador Ryan Crocker are about to testify before Congress.

Behind this furious backpedaling is a major Bush administration miscalculation about Muqtada and his Mahdi Army, which the administration believed was no longer capable of a coordinated military operation. It is now apparent that Muqtada and the Mahdi Army were holding back because they were in the process of retraining and reorganization, not because Muqtada had given up the military option or had lost control of the Mahdi Army.

Read more: http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/JD02Ak02.html

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I suggest reading the entire article.

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That assumption ignored the evidence that Muqtada had been avoiding major combat because he was reorganizing and rebuilding the Mahdi Army into a more effective force. Thousands of Mahdi Army fighters, including top commanders, were sent to Iran for training - not as "rogue elements", as suggested by the US command, but with Muqtada's full support. One veteran Mahdi Army fighter who had undergone such training told The Independent last April that the retraining was "part of a new strategy. We know we are against a strong enemy and we must learn proper methods and techniques."

Last week, a Mahdi Army commander in Sadr City in Baghdad was quoted by The Canadian Press as saying, "We are now better organized, have better weapons, command centers and easy access to logistical and financial support."

The ability of Mahdi Army units in Basra to stop in its tracks the biggest operation mounted against it since 2004 suggests that Shi'ite military resistance to the occupation is only beginning. Through the strength of the Mahdi Army's response just before Petraeus' testimony, Muqtada has posed a major challenge to the Bush narrative of military success in Iraq.

If the Iranians think he's going to be a patsy for him they've got another thing coming too. Al-Sadr is an Iranqi nationalist, he's an Arab and he's hardly going to be successful if he sells out his Iraqi/Arab followers to a bunch of Iranian Persians.

It's really mindboggling, though, to think that Patraeus & Co. hadn't figured out that Sadr's ceasefire was some sort of sign of weakness. Seriously, even a pajama potato like me could see what he's been up to. There have been miriad reports from correspondants for months from the NYT, the WaPo, the AP chronicalling his purging of the "rogue" elements within his movement and his efforts at retooling. He hasn't noticed what we've been doing with his mortal enemies the Sunnis all this time? What the hell did we think he'd be doing, studying religious books?

Aftr five years of war in Iraq and they still don't get it? Yeah, that David Patraeus is a genius!

He is merely the latest uniformed puppet who sold out to the Neocons.

He will be replaced after his usefulness as a pimp is over

I find this a little far-fetched. How bad could their intel be not to know that al Sadr is the guy with his hands on the levers?