Iraq the Model is reporting this great news:
In what looks like a massive recession for Muqtada and his followers; “Mehdi Army” decided to give in all their medium and heavy weapons to end their violent activities and obey the laws as a first step enter the political and electoral process.
The “conditions” that were put by Muqtada in return are no more than an attempt to tell the public opinion that this is not a surrender, as the “condition” related to the release of the arrested members of “Mehdi Army” was followed by the statement “except those found guilty of crimes” and this is an important development and a clear acceptance for the existing administration.. Another important development was that for the fist time Muqtada’s spokesman referred to the coalition forces as the multinational forces, not the occupation forces or aggressors and the usual crap.
Damn! I’m hoping this (and the earlier news about Syria) is at least half correct.
Even if this negotiation falls through, there will be more of them. Hopefully there will be some substantial surrenders soon.
No way is the Iraqi “resistance” infinitely sustainable. They are getting heavily wasted in combat, and when their stockpiles of weapons and ammunition run low they do not have a reliable source of foreign supply.
Amongst their reporting of bad news Reuters snuck this in:
Daoud said Iraq’s police and National Guard would play a role in Sadr City under the deal and reserved the right to seek support from U.S.-led multinational troops to maintain security.
The government said the Sadr City accord was a good chance for “all misled armed groups in Iraq to rejoin civil society.”
Carrot and stick approach. The recent credibility of Iraqi forces in Najaf and Ramallah must be giving the Mehdi Army and their ilk pause, as does the willingness of them to work with the Coalition forces in sweeps and raids.
Calling the Mehdi “misled armed groups” makes sense — the interim government is doing whatever it can to bring as many groups as possible into the voting franchise & upcoming elections. So long as the stick is there, it’s a promising stance to take towards a successful, integrated Iraq.
Let’s hope ….
Neal Boortz referred last week to a news article that reported loyalists to Moqtada al-Sadr had kidnapped a number of women and children and held them hostage in the compound, and that they had murdered the hostages when they expected U.S. military to begin an assault. The intention was to lay the blame for the deaths of the innocents on American Military, but instead the U.S. held back.
I have NOT found any confirmation of this report anywhere else. I wonder if anyone else has heard of this.
David, that happened for sure in Najaf. I’m not sure if it has also happened more recently, in Sadr City.
Robin, details? First-hand reporting?
I’ve heard this several times now. Lacking details.
I’m happy about this too.
At the time of the Najaf fighting, I said:
As I recall, you and others disagreed with this pretty strongly.
DM, the story you refer to was discussed in a post by Joe Katzman here a while ago. The bottom line is that the allegations were neither proved nor disproved.
John Quiggin’s characterization of the allegation re: France is true. I’ll go further and add that investigation showed it came from a single source, unattributed. Which is very weak.
RE: Sadr… John I _still_ disagree. I think he’s waiting to create trouble again, still working for the Iranians, and just waiting to rebuild first with Iranian money and arms. Adding this to the political mix does not strike me as positive – the hostile foreign connections make him something more than a local politician with a gun.
I’ll add that issuing a murder warrant for Sadr and then letting him walk around as a free man is incredibly corrosive to any concept of rule of law and sends apallingly bad signals.
Having said that, the U.S. military’s approach to let Sadr et. al. run things until people got really sick of them and were glad to see them gone ended up working well. There was no Shi’ite revolt, or even the rumblings of one – just thousands of people who showed up at Sistani’s urging to say “settle this peacefully and depart from the mosque.” So they killed hundreds of his thugs, and he had to leave the mosque which was his trump card. Pretty good.
I think Sadr should have been killed long before things got to that point, but I have to concede that once it did hit that level, the professional military guys had the approach that worked even though I disagreed. Their tactics were definitely better.
I do think Sadr should have been gunned down shortly after leaving Najaf, followed by the same moves we’re seeing now to pacify his followers (amnesty, cash incentives, and admittance to the political process under new leaders). Same result, clear penalties to Sadr’s action, settles the issue instead of deferring it.
Maybe I’ll be proved wrong again, and it will all work out. But I don’t have a good feeling about this – because I think leaving Sadr walking around is a flawed _strategy,_ not just flawed tactics.
We’ll see. Here’s hoping I’m wrong.