H17479
Headlines : IraqAl-Sadr ceasefire allows troops to enter Shia slum
The U.S. and Iraqi government have tried their hardest to dislodge and, if possible, destroy the Mahdi army as a viable force, but they have failed. This truce agreement is a humiliation for the U.S., stipulating that only Iraqi government troops may enter Sadr City and none of the occupiers.
This will gall President Bush, who as General Ricardo Sanchez has related in his memoirs, once told his man in Iraq to “Stay strong! Stay the course! Kill them! Prevail! We are going to wipe them out! We are not blinking!” referring to the Mahdi army.
It seems that the al-Maliki government has gained little from the assault on al-Sadr that will last. The Mahdi army has moved underground, again, and Iran has not suffered from this confrontation. What has happened is a tremendous loss of life and another example of how the occupation has utterly failed to win over Baghdad’s poor Shiite population.
Despite the truce, fighting also continues. The AP reports that Iraqi forces clashed with Shiite militiamen overnight, and the U.S. responded with “precision strikes.” Plus ca change eh?
[Posted By Szamko]Republished from The Independent
The anti-American Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr is the great survivor of Iraqi politics. In a tactical retreat he yesterday authorised a ceasefire under which the Iraqi army, but not US troops, will enter the great Shia slum of Sadr City in Baghdad while Mr Sadr’s Mehdi Army militia will stop firing rockets and mortars into the fortified Green Zone.
The ceasefire agreement is intended to end seven weeks of fighting in which more than 1,000 people, mostly civilians, have been killed during US-backed Iraqi government offensives against Mehdi Army strongholds in Basra and Baghdad. The Iraqi Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, has emerged strengthened by his confrontation with the Mehdi Army, but the Sadrists survive to fight another day.
Posted by Szamko
Just tries to tell the truth.
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Armed Truce: Surging Into Slaughter on Jerusalem Street
Civilians are still streaming out of Baghdad’s Sadr City, despite the announcement of a truce late last week designed to avert – or at least give the appearance of diverting – a major bloodbath from an all-out assault on the densely-populated area by U.S. forces and their local junior partners. Announced on Saturday, the deal was immediately eviscerated by U.S. forces, who bombed three neighborhoods in Sadr City that very afternoon, as dpa reports.
Just like those treaties with the Native Americas the leaders of USA can not honor anything. esp not life and culture.