II.
But let us say, for argument's sake, that the "official" story now
being cobbled together is true: that the raid was carried out by the
Mahdi Army forces of Shiite cleric Motqada al-Sadr. (Of course, to
carry out this thought-exercise, we must put aside the fact that Sadr –
who holds the balance of power in the Bush-backed Iraqi government in
his hands, and who has been told by the government which is dependent
upon him to have his troops lie low for a spell, while Bush feeds his
"surge" fodder into the meat grinder in hopes of a temporary PR boost –
would get no discernible benefit from such a brazen provocation, but
could definitely be hurt in a number of ways if he were tied to it.)
But let us go forward. If Sadr's forces did it, then this too is an
instance of "friendly fire" – because the Mahdi Army not only receives
arms from Iran; many of its troops are even now being armed, trained,
paid and deployed by the United States. They control whole units of the
Iraqi military and other Iraqi security forces – the very forces whose
close cooperation with U.S. troops is absolutely essential for the
successs of the "surge," or indeed, of the entire American "mission" in
Iraq. Or so we're told, at least.
Although Sadr opposes the American presence in Iraq as fiercely as he
opposed the regime of Saddam Hussein, he has been brought into the
Bush-backed "sovereign" Iraqi government, and his support was the key
element that allowed Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to form the
government. Sadr's troops have filled the ranks of Iraq's security
forces, which they are using to conduct a sectarian war and carry out
murderous "ethnic cleansing" operations.
One of the main thrusts of Bush's "surge" plan is that U.S. forces will
soon be directly engaging the Mahdi Army. Thus American troops will be
fighting against a sectarian militia that has in part been armed and
trained by American troops. What's more, these "surging" Americans will
be fighting alongside Mahdi Army troops that have infiltrated the
official Iraqi army.
George W. Bush has put U.S. soldiers – the ones he and his sycophants
claim so loudly to "support" – into a circular firing squad, where they
will, in effect, be killed with their own weapons. All questions of
moral equivalency aside, you would have to go back to Nazi Germany to
find a major power whose leaders act in such a howlingly stupid and
self-destructive fashion.
For more on the Mahdi Army's penetration of the Bush-trained Iraqi
army, see the Guardian report by the remarkable Ghaith Abdul-Ahad, who
is virtually the only Western reporter who is able to report from
"behind the lines" on the insurgency and the militias'
The Kidnapper's Story (Guardian)
Excerpts: Fadhel and other Mahdi Army commanders describe an intimate
relationship with Iraqi security services, especially the commandos of
the Iraqi interior ministry. He says the Mahdi Army often uses these
official forces in conducting its own operations against Sunni
"terrorists".
"We have specific units that we work with where members of the Mahdi
Army are in command. We conduct operations together. We can't ask any
army unit to come with us, we just ask the units that are under the
control of our men.The police are all under our control, we ask them to
help or inform them that shooting will take place in a street and it
involves the Mahdi Army, and that's it."
In one operation Fadhel took part in last summer, Iraqi interior
ministry commandos attacked a Sunni area in Dora called "Arab Jubour".
The raid involved 28 pickup trucks, he told me. Of them 16 were
ministry of interior, the rest Mahdi Army.
The new Bush plan to secure Baghdad gives a major role to the Iraqi
army and police units in securing Baghdad. Few in the city expect that
these predominantly Shia forces will seriously challenge their fellow
Shia.
