Near Sadr City, U.S. troops await attack

[bigtree]

Bush's planned escalation in Iraq will be all about suppressing the opposition to the new regime . . .


WILL WEISSERT
Associated Press

BAGHDAD, Iraq -

{snip}

Sadr City could prove the toughest nut to crack as the Bush administration appears ready to send thousands more soldiers to the capital to have a fresh run at pacifying the capital, where insurgent and militia violence has raged for months.

Iraqi government officials have said their troops, which are preparing to take on Sunni neighborhoods, will largely leave Sadr City to American forces and the Iraqi army's Special Operations Command division.

{snip}

The largest Baghdad enclave of Iraq's Shiite majority, Sadr City is the base for the Mahdi Army, a militia led by anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. Under pressure from Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in October, U.S. soldiers took down barbed-wire barricades that controlled traffic in and out of the area. Since then, they have ventured in only sparingly.

But so many mortar and rocket attacks have been launched from the outskirts of Sadr City in recent weeks that U.S. commanders decided to raid homes nearby, searching for weapons.

Many soldiers wondered whether what they were looking for was worth the risk . . .


article: http://www.contracostatimes.com/mld/cctimes/news/16411386.htm



my 2 cents:
Bush's Latest Plan To Perpetuate His Bloody Iraq Failure
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=3067502&mesg_id=3067502

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/bigtree

[Kagemusha]

1. So that's the Iraqis' big plan. Leave Sadr City to the US...

while they get a free hand to go pound on the Sunni parts of Bagdhad with Shiite militiamen and Kurdish troops.

...Why do I not like this plan?

[bigtree]

7. WSJ said 2000 of the 9,000 or so troops the Pentagon is preparing to initially deploy

will go to the Anbar province.

[Tin Man]

2. Forecast for Iraq - hopeless, with widely scatter clusterfucks in the afternoon.

Time to pull chocks and get the flock outta there. Thanks for posting the article - reinforces my belief that there's no military solution for Iraq at this point.

[Norquist Nemesis]

3. uh-oh! Hope he's prepared to oppress the majority of the

American people then. You know, all of those "anti-war" people from the "far-left". :eyes:

*sigh*

[LSK]

4. Maliki is a tool under the control of al-Sadr

This whole situation is so fucked up.

[bigtree]

6. It is mostly the Americans that Sadr hates and his forces oppose

but he did have that falling out with Maliki over the Jordan meeting with Bush where he had his government reps walk out for a short time before quietly coming back.

Besides, the U.S. is the Maliki regime as long as the occupation continues. I know Maliki wanted out recently. He can't be that close to Sadr and the U.S. at the same time. I suspect his 'friendship' with Sadr is a thing of the past.

[leftchick]

5. "I don't think they can dig the Mahdi army out of Sadr City, not without levelling it, like Fallujah

<snip>

Baghdad already knows what an all-out battle with the militia would be like: the Mahdi army has twice launched armed uprisings against coalition forces. During the last clashes, in which US helicopter gunships were used over Sadr City, the teeming Shia slum that is the militia's stronghold, the cost both to US troops and to Iraqi civilians was heavy. "I don't think they can dig the Mahdi army out of Sadr City, not without levelling it, like Fallujah," Dr Dodge said.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article2132575.ece

[bigtree]

8. this will cause a new round of reprisals from the 'Sadr Brigade'

in addition to the meaningless slaughter of combatants, innocents, and soldiers.

These folks in Iraq are not real to Bush. He's busy playing commander.

[Blackhatjack]

9. I think that statement will be prophetic ..... imagine what will be left.....

totally destroyed infrastructure, massive loss of life, and another incident to motivate even more violence against the US.

This is a disaster just waiting to happen.....

And Bush's announcement of a surge on Wed night is the beginning of it.