U.S. MILITARY ENTERS FIGHT AGAINST MILITIAS, SHOWS BUSH'S CLAIMS TO BE FALSE

For all of George Bush's triumphant nonsense on how the Iraqi Army is taking it upon itself to fight the "criminal" elements in Basra and throughout the rest of Iraq, we learn today from The Washington Post that the U.S. Army has taken over the fighting.

Sudarsan Raghavan and Sholnn Freeman report:

"U.S. forces in armored vehicles battled Mahdi Army fighters Thursday in the vast Shiite stronghold of Sadr City and military officials said Friday that U.S. aircraft bombed militant positions in the southern city of Basra, as the American role in a campaign against party-backed militias appeared to expand. Iraqi army and police units appeared to be largely holding to the outskirts of the Sadr City fighting, as American troops took the lead.

"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."

So much for the Bush spin that the surge was allowing Iraqis themselves to maintain civil society and the rule of law. The whole offensive by the Iraqi Army against the Mahdi Army in Basra was flawed and poorly thought out. It might cause the whole of Iraq to break out into civil war. Furthermore, lots of personnel in the Iraqi Army are themselves Shiites and have relatives in Basra. How can they possibly be expected to fight and kill their own relatives and co-religionists? We all know Bush and Cheney pressured Al Maliki to begin military action against the Sadr militias in Basra. Maliki and the Iraqi Army are merely surrogates for Bush and the U.S. military.

Write Raghavan and Freeman:

"As President Bush told an Ohio audience that Iraq was returning to "normalcy," administration officials in Washington held meetings to assess what appeared to be a rapidly deteriorating security situation in many parts of the country.

"American forces were involved in approximately a dozen firefights on Thursday in Baghdad alone, with fighting spread across six neighborhoods, according to information released by the U.S. military Friday morning. U.S. ground patrols in areas like Kadhamiyah and New Baghdad repeatedly came under attack from small arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades, responding with their own weapons and in one case calling in helicopter support. In that incident, the helicopter fired a hellfire missile into a group of militants that had attacked U.S. troops manning a checkpoint in Kadhamiyah, killing three of them. When the militants renewed their attack, the helicopter returned and killed 10 more using a 30mm gun, according to a U.S. military release.
In all, U.S. troops killed 42 in Thursday's Baghdad fighting, a sign of their growing engagement in the Iraqi-designed offensive."

WASHPO SAYS SURGE "REMARKABLE SUCCESS" IN SPITE OF EVIDENCE TO CONTRARY

The Washington Post has an editorial today, entitled, "Don't Let The Surge Fail." You can imagine the message without reading one word. The surge is working. Bush and Petraeus deserve credit. The Democrats in Congress trying to stop the war are irresponsible.

Here's the first paragraph:

"THE EVIDENCE is now overwhelming that the "surge" of U.S. military forces in Iraq this year has been, in purely military terms, a remarkable success. By every metric used to measure the war -- total attacks, U.S. casualties, Iraqi casualties, suicide bombings, roadside bombs -- there has been an enormous improvement since January. U.S. commanders report that al-Qaeda has been cleared from large areas it once controlled and that its remaining forces in Iraq are reeling. Markets in Baghdad are reopening, and the curfew is being eased; the huge refugee flow out of the country has begun to reverse itself. Credit for these achievements belongs in large part to U.S. soldiers in Iraq, who took on a tremendously challenging new counterterrorism strategy and made it work; to Gen. David H. Petraeus, the architect of that strategy; and to President Bush, for making the decision to launch the surge against the advice of most of Congress and the country's foreign policy elite."

These are the same WashPo editorial writers that supported Bush's illegal Iraq invasion and occupation back in 2002 and 2003. Now they think the surge is working and Bush and Petraeus should be credit? It is too ludicrous. Consider the following from Reuters today on violence in Iraq. (Thanks to Juan Cole in his Informed Comment for pointing this out.)

"Following are security developments in Iraq at 1430 GMT on Sunday.* denotes new or updated items.*

BAGHDAD - The Iraqi army killed four gunmen and arrested 63 others during the last 24 hours, in different parts in Iraq, the Defence Ministry said.

MOSUL - A parked car bomb killed three people, including a woman, and wounded 16 others, including four policemen, when it targeted a police patrol in central Mosul, 390 km (240 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.

TIKRIT - A roadside bomb killed an Iraqi army officer and a soldier and wounded another while they were trying to defuse it in central Tikrit, 175 km (110 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.

BAGHDAD - Four bodies were found in different districts of Baghdad on Saturday, police said.

MOSUL - Five bodies, including that of a police captain, were found dumped in different areas of Mosul, 390 km (240 miles) north of Baghdad, on Saturday, police said.

BAGHDAD - A roadside bomb wounded two people in Ameen district of southeastern Baghdad, police said.

BAGHDAD - A roadside bomb hit a police commandos patrol near al-Tayaran Square in central Baghdad on Saturday, wounding two policemen, police said.

BAGHDAD - U.S. helicopters killed two men planting a roadside bomb south of Baghdad on Friday, the U.S. military said.

BAGHDAD - A roadside bomb wounded two people in Kesra neighbourhood in northern Baghdad, police said.

RUSTUMIYA - Several rockets or mortar rounds landed in Rustumiya neighbourhood in southeastern Baghdad but caused no casualties, police said."

The Washington Post says the surge is "working." The surge is a "remarkable success." Given the casualties listed in Reuters, the surge seems more of the unworkable same. Iraq is a catastrophe caused by the illegal and unjustified Bush war. Far from being a "remarkable success," it is wasting lives, both American and Iraqi, and needs to be stopped and ended. Congress cannot allow this foolishness to go on.

WALK IN BAGHDAD'S NEIGHBORHOODS IF SURGE IS WORKING

Republicans in Congress like to argue against a time table for withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq. They say the surge is working and Gen. David Petraeus is a mastermind who needs more time to "finish" the job.

But this argument goes against reality. Juan Cole recites the figures:

"The House of Representatives attempted to put strings on Bush's latest supplemental for Iraq and Afghanistan, including a timetable for US military withdrawal. The bill they passed is expected to be defeated in the Senate and would in any case be vetoed by Bush. The Republican representatives are claiming things are just great now in Iraq (nearly 1000 persons a month are still being killed there even by the sketchy official statistics; as late as this September, the number of displaced persons increased by 16%; there is now active fighting on a new front, between Turkey and the Kurds holed up in northern Iraq; security is apparently collapsing in the port city of Basra; and Baghdad has in the past 10 months gone from 65% Shiite to 75% Shiite). Democrats warned against another 10 years of war at the cost of trillions of dollars."

There is no functioning Iraqi government outside the Green Zone. In neighborhoods in and around Baghdad, it is the law of the street and rule by war lords. Anything goes. As Juan Cole points out, there are still over 1,000 people killed per month. Iraqis are still streaming out of their neighborhoods. And Baghdad has witnessed ethnic cleansing on an enormous scale.

Ghaith Abdul-Ahad writes in The Guardian on his personal observations and experiences in one Baghdad neighborhood.

Here is one vignette from this must-read account by Adul-Ahad:

"Ameriya is a closed zone, surrounded by high concrete walls. Only pedestrians are allowed through the two Iraqi army checkpoints out of the suburb. The "knights" are the only authority inside.

"When we arrived at the house where the alleged al-Qaida commander was hiding, Bakr was already in action. He was dragging a plump man into a car, grabbing his neck with one hand and his BKC machine gun with the other.

"The horrified man begged them not to take him. "By Allah, I didn't say Qaida is better than you, you are our brothers, just let me go!" A gunman kicked the man and pushed him into a car.

"The suspect's brother, still in his pyjamas, pleaded, and women in nightgowns stood in the street wailing and begging the gunmen to release him.

"The gunmen pointed their guns at the people and pushed them back. A young fighter carrying an old British sub-machine gun fired a burst into the air."

Read Adul-Ahad's report and then compare it with the Republicans and their vacuous pie-in-the-sky comments on the "surge is working" theme.

U.S. MILITARY CLAIMS SURGE REDUCES ATTACKS; IRAQIS FEEL OTHERWISE

Gen. Ray Odierno claims that attacks in Baghdad have falled from 32 to 12 since the start of 2007, more than 50%.

But is this the right metric to use? Would it not be better to compare August 2007 to August 2006 and see if there is indeed a drop. For example, AP reports the numbers of Iraqi civilian deaths (not limited to Baghdad) and show a large jump up in comparing August 2006 to August 2007. See the charts on Talking Points Memo.

Also the BBC reports that most Iraqis think they are less safe and that the surge has made life worse:

"[A] recent BBC/ABC poll of Iraqis found about 70% believe security had deteriorated since the US surge.

"According to the poll, more than two-thirds said that in terms of security and the conditions for political dialogue, reconstruction and economic development the surge had made things worse. "