Submit your comments on this article |
Iraq-Jordan |
DEBKA: US Troops Pull out of Major Centers |
2004-04-10 |
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report... Salt to taste. On Friday, April 9 â Day Six of the Shiite radical uprising - the tide turned in the Iraq war. US-led forces in Iraq were thrown back to the point they had reached exactly one year ago when Saddam Husseinâs colossal statue was toppled by joyous Iraqis. They were faced, according to DEBKAfileâs exclusive military and intelligence sources, with a row of devastating setbacks: ministers were quitting the provisional Iraqi Governing Council set up to hold the fort of government until the handover of sovereignty on June 30; large parts of the New Iraqi Army, police, border guard, protective units for oil installations and intelligence, trained and financed by Washington, were breaking down. Some Iraqi units were handing their weapons and surrendering to the nearest insurgent militias, whether the rebellions radical Shiite Mehdi Army or other guerrilla groups, including al Qaeda. The third element of the picture flowed from the first two: US troops were ordered to de-escalate military action and pull back from the major fronts of Baghdadâs sprawling northern Shiite slum known as Sadr City, the northern oil city of Mosul and Ar Ramadi at the western tip of the Sunni Triangle. They were told that further coalition troop advances were bound to cause an unacceptable level of civilian and troop casualties. This was the real background to the unilateral US suspension of hostilities on April 9 in the hotbed town of Falllujah, scene of the brutal lynching of four American contractors on March 31. Saturday, April 10, US Brig.Gen Kimmit called on Iraqi insurgents in Fallujah to join the ceasefire declared unilaterally by US forces and negotiate a way out of the crisis. The call went unheeded as guerrillas continued to attack. Most surprisingly, American and allied forces were stopped in their tracks not by a popular Iraqi revolution or a mighty army, but by the spotty âstrike and scootâ tactics of a radical militia, the ragtag Mehdi Army led by a fringe Shiite leader, 31-year old Moqtada Sadr. His tactics, meticulously plotted by masterminds in Iran and the Hizballah, proved capable of breaking up the military, political and economic edifice the Bush administration had created at great cost on the road to a future democracy. The impact of the Iraqi reverses on US standing in the world and the Middle East and George W. Bushâs re-election prospects will not be long in coming. Americaâs allies in the region are aghast. Their leaders are witnessing a stage in the Iraq war in which US-led forces are falling back against the combined strength of terrorists and their sponsors, Iran, Hizballah, Syria, al Qaeda and Iraqi Shiite radicals. The thought has occurred to Jerusalem that this anti-American coalition may well decide to sidestep a direct military confrontation with the American army and follow up its Iraq successes with a newly invigorated military-terrorist offensive against Israel. This sharpened threat looms at the very moment that Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon is working against all odds to sell President Bush and his own Likud Party a plan for Israelâs unilateral disengagement from the Palestinians and renunciation of all Gaza and a handful of West bank settlements. This plan would render Jewish state extremely vulnerable to enemy action, a fact that will not be lost on the winning coalition in Iraq which also sustains the extremist Hamas, or on the Palestinian terrorist movement as a whole. Israelâs withdrawal from the Gaza Strip would be a gift to Hamas, delivering into the hands of the terrorists threatening to overrun Iraq the further gain of an open enclave, haven and base, on the Mediterranean, that would hem Israel in from the south. They would acquire this asset on top of the Lebanese and Syrian bases on its northern border where the terrorists and their Iranian backers are already poised to strike. DEBKAfileâs military sources uncover for the first time the sequence of events unfolding in the last 48 hours that brought the US-led coalition army to its present impasse: 1. Thursday night, April 8, US forces, diverted to regain the southern town of al Kut from Sadrâs militia, rolled into the town center. They rolled out again with all speed once they saw the steady barrage directed against them could be halted only by a heavy bombardment of the streets and residential districts with resultant heavy civilian casualties. |
Posted by:lyot |
#17 lyot> Yes, in my view. Up to now the whole war on Iraq and Saddam's overthrow had been utterly trivial in relation to the WOT, except only in the way it paved the path for *this* offensive by the Syria-Sadr-Iran axis. |
Posted by: Aris Katsaris 2004-04-10 5:32:08 PM |
#16 Aris, so one could say the WOT is only now starting in Iraq.. (with the alignement Sadr /islamofacists)? |
Posted by: lyot 2004-04-10 5:25:31 PM |
#15 Patrick> "It seems to me the Iraq war is not over." Ya think?? You can choose to see this as the halfpoint of the war, start of the second half, the *important* half... or you can choose to see it as the starting point of a whole new war. What you can't do is think that Sadr is but a detail. A couple days ago I said he's as important as Saddam -- I'm revising this now to say that he's *more* important than Saddam. Saddam wasn't allied with the global Islamofascists and Sadr is. I'm adding a WOT Future concerning him. |
Posted by: Aris Katsaris 2004-04-10 5:22:04 PM |
#14 yeah, but they did correctly predict the wave of abductions several months ago.. |
Posted by: lyot 2004-04-10 4:53:02 PM |
#13 ex-lib: Debka is a rather interesting source of intel rumors. Maybe about 50% of every sentence they write turns out to be true; however the wrong part is often hugely important and changes the gist of the info 180degrees. They also have a wierd obsession with Imad Mughniyah, blaming him for everything from 9/11 to fleas on dogs. In other words, I call baloney here. |
Posted by: someone 2004-04-10 2:48:46 PM |
#12 I believe this entire experience must make the western democracies (U.S. and Europe) really review what it takes to fight and pacify these Quasi-Mob style groups. Put yourself in the shoes of somebody in Iraq. If the cross the Insurgents what happens? They capture, rape, and murder your family and then you. If you cross the Americans what happens? You may get captured and put in a nice prison with 3-square meals. If you talk bad/back to the insurgents? You get killed. You talk back to the americans, you get on TV. This same problem has caused the US and the U.N. problems in most of the peacekeeping operations around the world. This is why the U.N. has been found standing around while atrocities happen. If the world was honest and really wanted to combat this type of despotism it may be time to revisit the Geneva Convention and what rules should be in place during a occupation (i.e. peacekeeping operation). If you truely trust your armies (as I believe most the western armies can be trusted) then we should review what worked after WWII. The local commanders were given wide powers to be the local constable, judge, jurry, and executioners. I believe the current lack of punishiment for fighting the americans right now is why this thing is escalating out of control. I also believe that is why they want some form of government up and running that can start trying and executing the people we catch. Keep in mind that at the point Japan surrendered the island was highly armed to repel a invasion. Once we started occuping we went around and not only rounded up all the Firearms, but we even took their Swords. If you understand anything about Japaneese culture at that point you would know that this was highly offensive. And I don't buy for a minute that soley the coorporation of the Emperour is what made this work. The military had already shown that they would do what they wanted. I am guessing some heavy handed tactics is what did it. It seems to me the Iraq war is not over. At this point I would work with the Kurds to develop an army, screw the rest of the country. I would then deploy a special division (like we have at falloga) and work from town to town just like we did with Tikrit and we are doing with Folloja. First establish that we are collecting weapons. Give it a week. Make it know anybody found with weapons will be shot. Plain, simple. This is the same thing we did in Germany. When the week is over start thru the town. Anybody found with weapons is given a quick on the spot trial and is shot. Unfortunately the rest of the western countries either do not understand this is what is required and will not allow it. Therefore I see no choice here but eventually loosing. Unless of course another major attack is carried out in a western country. Then maybe? |
Posted by: Patrick 2004-04-10 2:12:15 PM |
#11 not Saddam, but other high ranking officials.. (this turned out to be true though !) .. |
Posted by: lyot 2004-04-10 2:02:57 PM |
#10 Debka also had Saddam on the Syrian vacation coast and in Belorussia. |
Posted by: Shipman 2004-04-10 1:51:08 PM |
#9 Debka is, just like Stratfor, a private compagny that 'sells' intelligence on the web.. It's an Israeli compagny, and there often a bit biased. As long as you keep that in mind, it's often a usefull source of information.. (for instance , regarding the abductions in Iraq.. They wrote this already 2-3 months ago..) |
Posted by: lyot 2004-04-10 1:24:37 PM |
#8 What is DEBKA? I read about half of this report, freaked out, and scrolled down to the message section. I'd like to know before I invest any time into reading this post. Enlightenment is requested. Thanks. |
Posted by: ex-lib 2004-04-10 1:19:13 PM |
#7 JAB: I presume our troops can get to safety and protect themselves, but there is no way we can maintain total control without the IP, etc. contributing to civil order. I think the problem has been the IP in Fallujah. Instead of contributing to order, they've been contributing to chaos. This is why we have the kind of situation we're encountering there. We've been trying to buy them off, and this hasn't worked. It's time to purge the Fallujah IP, and perhaps impose direct American rule there. The solution may be to hire IP from the Kurdish part of Iraq - people who don't have local ties and are harder for local mobsters to intimidate. |
Posted by: Zhang Fei 2004-04-10 12:34:12 PM |
#6 Some of this is just Israeli chauvinism - they think know best. And to Israelis that means using limited force to kill limited numbers of terrorists. The reality is that Israeli indecisiveness has encouraged terror for literally decades. Instead of paying the bill at once, they've been paying this bill for decades, with the attendant negative consequences for the Israeli economy. |
Posted by: Zhang Fei 2004-04-10 12:28:44 PM |
#5 As with all Debka posts, there is likely an element of truth. The sad fact is that our relatively small occupation force (vs. Army projections) was based on the idea that the Iraqi Police and other security forces could pick up the slack. It's clear that they're doing nothing to help maintain order and are, at least sometimes, joining the insurrection. We are in a bad negotiating position now that that IGC, which we are attempting to prop up as a legitimate sovereign authority, is opposing us rather than optting for order. I presume our troops can get to safety and protect themselves, but there is no way we can maintain total control without the IP, etc. contributing to civil order. |
Posted by: JAB 2004-04-10 12:27:21 PM |
#4 Journalistic situation normal: sky is falling, doom impending, all is lost. |
Posted by: Matt 2004-04-10 12:21:55 PM |
#3 Marines Move Third Battalion to Fallujah Pass the salt, please. |
Posted by: Parabellum 2004-04-10 12:10:28 PM |
#2 I don't dismiss Debka out of hand and all the journalists are holed up in Baghdad. So who knows what happening but the report of Sunnis fleeing Mosul in large numbers has a certain verisimilitude, if the Kurds are mobilizing. Scores will be settled. And facts on the ground created. |
Posted by: Phil B 2004-04-10 11:53:54 AM |
#1 I wish we had some alternative "exclusive military and intelligence sources" to provide a more level-headed analysis. Surely a lot of these claims are easily fact-checked. |
Posted by: virginian 2004-04-10 11:39:45 AM |