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Born at the Crest of the Empire

Tuesday, October 31, 2006

US obeys Maliki's order to remove checkpoints in Sadr City

A huge victory for Sadr. A significant claim of independence for Maliki, and a punch in the gut to the US forces. The Shia are parading in the streets with Sadr's picture, (but blogger won't let me upload pictures right now.)
The United States on Tuesday disbanded a five-day-old military blockade of Baghdad's impoverished Sadr City section, meeting a deadline set by Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki under pressure from the anti-U.S. cleric whose militia controls the sprawling Shiite slum.

Maliki ordered that the security cordon be lifted hours after cleric Moqtada al-Sadr called for a civil disobedience campaign in Sadr City to protest the blockade, which the U.S. launched Wednesday in an effort to find an abducted U.S. soldier and capture a purported Iraqi death squad leader.


Not only did they leave, but they left quickly after Maliki gave them 3 hours.

The last plan voiced to reduce the violence in Baghdad was to take on the militias in Sadr City. What's the plan now?

posted by mikevotes at 11:47 AM

4 Comments:

  • Not unlike a certain Hezbollah victory. Expect Sadr to make a lot of this one. Expect him to use it to get some more control on his militia. Expect him to be more of a handful.

    By Blogger Bravo 2-1, at 2:11 PM  

  • Yeah, what kills me is that just about every soldier and lower level officer that I've seen says that they see the solution in going into Sadr City and taking on Sadr and his militia.

    And, they seem anxious to get on with it. To get to the fight.

    This has to be a punch in the gut. If they're not allowed to fight, they must wonder why the hell they're there.

    Mike

    By Blogger mikevotes, at 2:22 PM  

  • Yeah, what kills me is that just about every soldier and lower level officer that I've seen says that they see the solution in going into Sadr City and taking on Sadr and his militia.

    You mean like we could have done years ago when we were still in control and had him pinned down? But then we backed off and gave him back his army? Like that time? Yeah that would be nice. Another example of Washington chicken-hawk, dick-heads screwing up.

    I find the term "obey" interesting. The headlines all say "US troops obey Maliki orders to..." instead of "US agrees with Maliki's call..." Curious.

    By Blogger -epm, at 3:51 PM  

  • I noticed the headline language was unflattering as well.

    We tried on a small scale twice before to go after his militia and both times Mahdi fought a holding action until the politics turned their way.

    See, they understand what's going on in Iraq.

    Mike

    By Blogger mikevotes, at 5:58 PM  

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