Big Credit Again to Tom Lasseter

Tom Lasseter of McClatchy, formerly Knight-Ridder, was the only major newsman to actually examine the elements of the pre-Iraq intelligence. That should not be forgotten.

Today, he is stepping on another recent media taboo, reporting that the US's training program has trained and equipped half of Sadr's Mahdi militia. (The media memo this week said to blame everything on Iran. CNN and the NYTimes got that memo.)

The U.S. military drive to train and equip Iraq's security forces has unwittingly strengthened anti-American Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army militia, which has been battling to take over much of the capital city as American forces are trying to secure it.

U.S. Army commanders and enlisted men who are patrolling east Baghdad, which is home to more than half the city's population and the front line of al-Sadr's campaign to drive rival Sunni Muslims from their homes and neighborhoods, said al-Sadr's militias had heavily infiltrated the Iraqi police and army units that they've trained and armed.

"Half of them are JAM. They'll wave at us during the day and shoot at us during the night," said 1st Lt. Dan Quinn, a platoon leader in the Army's 1st Infantry Division, using the initials of the militia's Arabic name, Jaish al Mahdi. "People (in America) think it's bad, but that we control the city. That's not the way it is. They control it, and they let us drive around. It's hostile territory."

(One more gripe while I'm here. New Iraq commander Petraeus is being hailed as the new saint and messiah, but wasn't training the Iraqis his baby for awhile? How'd that go?)

As always from Lasseter, it's a good article worth a full read.