American warplanes join Iraqi troops in taking the fight to Shia militia
Maliki's assault on his rival in the forthcoming election in Basra really is starting to look a bit shaky. The Iraqi forces, the boys who will stand up so that the US can stand down, have had to ask the US for help.
US aircraft attacked Shia militia in Basra for the first time in the current round of fighting as intense battles continued between supporters of Moqtada al-Sadr and tens of thousands of Iraqi forces in a crackdown personally supervised by Iraq's prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki.
British troops, based at the city's airport, were kept away from the operation described by George Bush as "a defining moment in the history of Iraq".
American fighter jets dropped bombs on a mortar team and a militia stronghold in Basra, said Major Tom Holloway, a British military spokesman. The number of casualties was unknown.
I have no idea why Bush would want to get his forces involved in what appears to be a political battle between Maliki and al Sadr ahead of the coming elections in Basra, elections that it is being predicted that al Sadr would win.
But for months now we have been told that the fall in casualties means that the "surge" is working. Now we are being told that the outbreak of violence is a sign that the surge is working. This "surge" simply can't fail under any circumstances, as everything that happens seems further proof that it "is working."
Maliki started out demanding that al Sadr's forces disarm within 72 hours. They have now extended that until 8th April, which is sure fire sign that things are not going well. Indeed, Abdel Qader Jassim, the defence minister, has voiced his "surprise" at the resistance that his forces have been met with from the militia. He's actually expressing his "surprise" that the Mahdi army can put up a fight.
And, of course, as Iraqi's witness this assault on the city of Basra, protests are breaking out all over Iraq.
As protests spread across Iraq, US aircraft also attacked Sadr City in eastern Baghdad, killing at least five civilians, according to Iraqi police and hospitals.The British appear to be making it very clear that this is between Maliki and al Sadr and that they want nothing to do with it, which makes Bush jumping into Maliki's battle all the odder to work out.Defying a curfew, protesters again attacked the US-protected Green Zone in the capital with mortars and rockets. Elsewhere at least 22 people, including six civilians, were killed in fierce fighting in the southern cities of Mahmoudiya, Nasiriya - now held by elements of Sadr's Mahdi army - and Kut, according to reports from police and army officials cited by news agencies.
The US forces are showing no such reticence and Bush has actually employed boots on the ground, no doubt because the brilliantly trained Iraqi forces are having their arses kicked."The operation was planned, implemented, and executed by the Iraqis. We will only intervene if requested by the Iraqis," the MoD said.
As if to drive home the point, an official added: "It is their operation, their responsibility to bring security to Basra and Iraq as a whole."
The same Washington Post article states that Maliki decided on this action without consulting his US allies, so if I was an American I'd be seriously pissed that young American lives are being risked to help Maliki take out a political rival ahead of an election.Four U.S. Stryker armored vehicles were seen in Sadr City by a Washington Post correspondent, one of them engaging Mahdi Army militiamen with heavy fire. The din of American weapons, along with the Mahdi Army's AK-47s and rocket-propelled grenades, was heard through much of the day. U.S. helicopters and drones buzzed overhead.
The clashes suggested that American forces were being drawn more deeply into a broad offensive that Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite, launched in the southern city of Basra on Tuesday, saying death squads, criminal gangs and rogue militias were the targets. The Mahdi Army of cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, a Shiite rival of Maliki, appeared to have taken the brunt of the attacks; fighting spread to many southern cities and parts of Baghdad.
Bush is giving it the large one but to be honest he probably feels like the has no choice now. He is tied irrevocably to Iraq and he has to sell every twist and turn as a positive development. So, when Maliki starts a battle - and is then "surprised" with the force that he encounters - the US under Bush feel they have no option other than to engage and fight his war for him.
The British do not feel so inclined and I have to say that I am with Brown on that one. Maliki needs to realise eventually that, if he starts battles, he has to finish them or lose them. He can't always expect to call on the Americans to do his fighting for him.
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