Are we witnessing a rout in Iraq?
Fri Oct 20, 2006 at 11:32:14 AM PDT
It was first in reading the Burns piece in the print edition this morning that the true scale of failure in our Baghdad operation became clear. Well down in that article, Burns writes:
It's no coincidence that the surge in attacks against coalition forces and the subsequent increase in U.S. casualties coincide with our increased presence in the streets of Baghdad and the run-up to the American midterm elections," the general said. "The enemy knows that killing innocent people and Americans will garner headlines and create a sense of frustration."
A hint that changes in the Baghdad operation were afoot came three weeks ago, when the neighborhood sweeps were halted with large areas of the city untouched, including strongholds of Sunni and Shiite militants like Mansour, in western Baghdad, and Sadr City in the east. Last week, Mr. Bush told reporters he was open to modifying the approach in Iraq "if it's not working." Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the top American commander in Iraq, made similar comments
Three weeks ago is September 30, before this month's spike in US casualties. The way I read this, we've sustained our greatest casualty rate since Fallujah at the same time we have halted penetrations into Baghdad neighborhoods.
What's more, it appears sectarian forces have claimed TWO Iraqi cities with no resistence from US and Iraqi government forces.
Burns says that in Ramadi, pro-Sharia Sunnis have just gone unchallenged:
The general's remarks, unusual for their candor and unvarnished portrayal of bad news, appeared to mark a new setback for the American military effort. Stark new videotape broadcast on Thursday by Al Jazeera from Ramadi, an insurgent stronghold 80 miles west of Baghdad, showed heavily armed insurgents taking over a busy city street in broad daylight to celebrate the proclamation by their leaders of an Islamic state in wide areas of Iraq's Sunni heartland. There was no sign of any attempt to intervene by the heavy concentration of American and Iraqi troops in the city. The Iraqi government said the demonstrators fled after 15 minutes.
While in Amara, according to Hauser, Shi'ites have taken control:
A Shiite militia that has been accused of a wave of sectarian attacks on Iraq's Sunni minority has seized control of the city of Amara in southeastern Iraq, attacking police stations and erecting checkpoints, witnesses in the city said today. At least 15 people have been killed, health officials said.
The takeover of Amara by the militia, the Mahdi Army, was a broad act of defiance against the authority of the central government, which has been trying to impose order and curb sectarian violence. The incident also raised questions about whether Iraq's militias can be reined in.
[snip]
The clashes in Amara, culminating in what effectively was a seizure of the city by the militia, appeared to spring from the assassination this week of a senior police official loyal to another powerful Shiite militia, the Badr Organization. The official's family and the Badr group accused the Mahdi Army of being behind that killing, according to an account from Amara. A brother of a Mahdi Army commander was then kidnapped in reprisal, the account said.
Sheik Abdul Kareem al-Muhammadawi, a prominent tribal leader, said in an interview by telephone today that the Mahdi Army responded by deploying its troops in the city. He said the police were outgunned, with insufficient weapons and ammunition.
"There is no state in the city right now," he said.
So the take-home messsage from these articles in today's Times is:
1) We're scuttling offensive operations in Baghdad, while
2) sustaining more casualties, the worst of the war, and at the same time
3) we're not challenging announced sectarian takeovers of major Iraqi cities outside Baghdad.
Is stalemate over? Is there a rout underway?
