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At the very time that a top Pentagon research
center, the Institute for National Strategic Studies, has issued a
report describing the Iraq War as a debacle, the U.S. military is
continuing to up the ante by widening its counterinsurgency war. It has
been attacking the Shiite militia identified with Muqtada al-Sadr, the
cleric who participates in the government and has called on his
followers to maintain a cease-fire with the occupiers.
The INSS report was written in November 2007, before the recent offensive.
It opens with the words: “Measured in blood and treasure, the war in
Iraq has achieved the status of a major war and a major debacle."
The expansion of the counterinsurgency war of the U.S. and its allies
to attacking the Shiite militia has been leading to higher casualties
among the occupation troops and to increasing risks for the U.S. and
its client government. The number of U.S. soldiers killed for the month
of April was 47, the highest since last September, and the fighting in
the Sadr City neighborhood of Baghdad is still increasing.
The offensive against the Shiite forces began in the south, in
particular in the country’s main oil port of Basra. That area was
important for the Shiite militia in particular because of the access it
offered to income from oil exports. U.S. forces have been relieved of
much of the pressure of fighting there because Basra has been occupied
by British troops, who withdrew from the city for a period but
re-entered it to join the Baghdad government's offensive against the
militia groups.
The Iranian government, which the U.S. accuses of encouraging and
arming Shiite militia groups, has actually supported the assault on
militia forces in this area, calling them "bandits."
Moreover, the Shiite militias have incurred significant popular
hostility in Basra by trying to impose a ruthless theocratic regime.
However, in Muqtada al-Sadr's main base, Sadr City, the political
conditions have been unfavorable to the offensive by Iraqi government
and occupation forces. The attempt by the occupiers and their allies to
gain control of Sadr City has been inflicting a terrible toll on the
civilian population and thereby increasing mass antagonism to the
occupation and the local politicians associated with it.
In a typical pattern, the U.S. military is calling in air strikes in
support of government ground forces and blowing away whole buildings.
Also in a typical pattern, the military claims that it is only
"militants" who are killed, while the local people say they
are hapless civilians.
Photos show the bodies of small children being dragged from piles of
rubble. That was the case of a U.S. air strike on a building in Sadr
City on April 29.
The Los Angeles Times reported: "The U.S. Army said they were
militants. Sadr City residents said at least some were civilians, and
photographs showed a dust-covered child being pulled from a mountain of
rubble after Tuesday's fighting. Whatever the facts, at least 28 people
were dead after the four-hour battle, the latest killed in a showdown
between U.S. and Iraqi forces and Shiite Muslim militiamen over recent
weeks."
The LA Times story continued with some details: "In its captions,
the Associated Press identified the boy in bloodied shorts being
carried from the ruins of a house as 2-year-old Ali Hussein. It said he
was pronounced dead at a hospital.
"The brother-in-law of an Iraqi journalist who works with The
Times also was reported killed. The victim recently had moved his
immediate family out of the neighborhood because of the fighting."
A May 3 AP dispatch reported: "The U.S. military on Saturday fired
missiles at a target about 50 yards away from the general hospital in
Baghdad's Sadr City district, wounding more than 20 people and
destroying ambulances, hospital officials said."
The terrorizing of the civilian population in Sadr City alienated more
than the residents of the area and the supporters of Muqtada al-Sadr.
On April 28, a delegation of 30 members of parliament, including
Sunnis, called on Premier al-Maliki to end the offensive. An AP dispatch
reported that "30 Iraqi lawmakers from various political parties
urged Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to end the month-long
confrontation, saying innocent civilians and children were the main
victims of the fighting.
"'Yes, you can do it if you remember your own children,' said a
joint statement read by Mustafa al-Heeti, a Sunni member of parliament.
"Your people (are) demanding of you to intervene and solve the
crisis peacefully."
The Shiite politicians that collaborate with the occupation are afraid
of the gains that Muqtada al-Sadr may make in upcoming elections. It is
evident that his line of opposition to the occupation has been gaining
popularity but it has been hard to judge his electoral strength because
he has boycotted previous elections.
This time al-Sadr will participate, though the government is saying
that his supporters will not be allowed to run unless they disband
their militia forces. He is unlikely to do that. But his support is so
great that if he is barred from the elections, the vote is apt to lose
its legitimacy.
In any case, the fighting in Sadr City has made it clear that after
five years the occupation forces have not yet even secured control of
the capital, or even the area near their fortified center. Sand storms
that obstructed the use of U.S. air power enabled resistance fighters
to shell the Green Zone. Thus, the U.S. controls only the air, not the
ground.
The long-term toll of the great adventure of the U.S. ruling class,
meanwhile, is becoming more and more evident. For example, an April 28
New York Times article reported: "The service members and veterans
who reported these symptoms [post-traumatic stress] represented about
19 percent of the 1.6 million service members who have deployed to war
in the last five years, a figure consistent with the most recent
findings by military researchers.
"A 2007 survey of combat army soldiers who had been home for
several months found that 17 percent of active-duty troops and 25
percent of reservists had screened positive for symptoms of stress
disorder.
"The study, released on Thursday by the RAND Corporation, reported
that about 19 percent of the troops said they might have experienced a
traumatic brain injury, usually the result of powerful roadside bombs,
yet a majority of those troops had never been evaluated for such an
injury."
Former Assistant Secretary of Defense Joseph Collins, the writer of the
Institute for National Strategic Studies critique of the Iraq War cited
above, noted in his report that the United States now spends over $10
billion per month on the war and that "no one as yet has
calculated the costs of long-term veterans' benefits or the total
impact on Service personnel and materiel."
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