Earlier this month, the southern Iraqi city of Basra was engulfed in violence as radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr calling for the “downfall of the U.S.-backed government.”
As Reuters noted, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s crackdown on the militias largely “backfired, exposing the weakness of his army and strengthening his political foes ahead of elections.” Yet the Bush administration and its allies have attempted to portray this violence as a success, demonstrating the capability of the Iraqi army. According to a new Time magazine article, some U.S. troops are bristling at all the undue credit being lavished upon the Iraqi forces:
And at least one American soldier said he was angry that the role of Iraqi troops was exaggerated after the battle. “A gunfight broke out and we were fighting [the Mahdi Army] for about four hours,” the soldier told TIME. “The army article made it sound like we were just there supporting the Iraqi Army, but we did all the work. We just had four humvees out there with some Iraqi [troops].” Another soldier at Forward Operating Base Kalsu in north Babil said he has little confidence in the battle abilities of the Iraqi forces. “Sometimes they start shooting because they heard or saw something, but then there’s nothing there,” he said.
At the risk of being monotonous, I reiterate that the Basra Operation was instigated and supported [very heavily, maybe even spearheaded] by American Forces. I summarized my reasons for saying this when it started, and everything since then confirms it [including the reports of the soldiers above]. Here were my thoughts about their plan:
Scenario III: American President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney [recent visitor to Iraq] initiate active hostilities against Cleric Moqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army claiming it is an operation of Prime Minister Nouri Kamal al-Malaki and his Iraqi Army in hopes of bringing the Iraq War to some successful end – re-electing a Republican President in the U.S., insuring the oil flow is in the hands of "friendlys," and finding a place for themselves in history.
I guess I missed an important reason – picking a fight with Iran, allied with al-Sadr. Can’t win them all. George W. Bush and Dick Cheney are dangerous until they’re gone [and afterwards if McCain is elected]. These two men are not going to stand down. They are at a record disapproval level with Americans, but move ahead undaunted. They are guilty of war crimes, but carry on. They are opposed by the world and Congress but they are unswerving. It’s hard to even imagine an arrogance that is so impervious to other opinions. It’s that arrogance that makes me sure that this offensive was planned in Washington D.C., on Pennsylvania Avenue…
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