OTTAWA–Prime Minister Stephen Harper appeared to dampen expectations Friday that all of Canada's demands on Afghanistan will be met during next week's NATO leaders summit in Romania.

While he remains confident the military alliance will come through with 1,000 reinforcements and extra equipment, Harper suggested it all might take more time to accomplish than the two-day meeting among 26 leaders.

"I anticipate in the weeks to come there will be additional commitments made in Afghanistan by some of our allies," he said while visiting northern Quebec.

"I don't think we will necessarily finish that process at Bucharest but we will finish it in the very near future."

It was widely expected that French President Nicolas Sarkozy would use the gathering of NATO leaders on April 2-4 to announce that his country was sending additional troops. Instead, he largely made his intentions known during a visit this week to Britain, prompting an immediate uproar back home.

It's not clear whether French troops would go to eastern or southern Afghanistan, but there is a strong suggestion they'll likely deploy to a province south of Kabul. Such a move would free American troops to bolster the Canadian positions in Kandahar.
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Backing an operation that has rekindled violence could prove a miscalculation for Bush, some of his allies say.

By Peter Spiegel, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
March 29, 2008

WASHINGTON -- As U.S. forces are drawn further into renewed fighting, the potential for deepening chaos in Iraq is raising questions about whether the Bush administration made a wise decision or a costly miscalculation in backing an Iraqi government offensive against Shiite militias.

President Bush said Friday that the offensive answered critics who have accused Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki's Shiite Muslim-dominated government of inaction and of favoritism toward Shiites.

"I would say this is a defining moment in the history of a free Iraq," Bush said at the White House.

"The decision to move troops, Iraqi troops, into Basra talks about Prime Minister Maliki's leadership."

But some of the administration's allies have begun to question the timing and wisdom of the offensive, which has met with stiff resistance since it was launched Tuesday in the southern city of Basra. Since then, fighting against Shiite militiamen has spread through much of southern Iraq and into Baghdad. Iraqi forces have called in U.S. airstrikes to fend off well-armed groups in Basra, including an attack by a Navy jet on a mortar position.

Signifying the potential difficulty ahead, other U.S. assets, including special-operations forces and spy planes, are expected to join the fight.

Within the Pentagon, officers expressed concern about the rapid spillover of violence into areas where U.S. forces have spent more than a year painstakingly working to restore order, especially the Shiite neighborhoods of Baghdad.

U.S. officials have long believed that Iraqi militias should be disbanded. But military analysts inside and outside the Pentagon are questioning whether this was the time and place to do it.

The offensive comes two weeks before Army Gen. David H. Petraeus is to testify before Congress on his plans for Iraq.

Petraeus is known for opening his recent presentations by displaying what aides call his favorite slide: a chart showing attacks in Iraq spiking last year, then dramatically dropping amid the deployment of 28,500 additional U.S. troops.

Pentagon officials worry that the recent violence will mar that otherwise compelling narrative.

The extra troops are scheduled to leave by the end of July, and Petraeus is expected to make a recommendation on whether and how fast troops should be sent home after that.

As violence has spread this week, the relative calm that had been returning to Baghdad was disrupted by images that recalled the sectarian war before the troop buildup: repeated shelling of the fortified Green Zone; demonstrations by outraged Shiites; checkpoints in the slums of Sadr City manned by Mahdi Army militiamen loyal to cleric Muqtada Sadr, who say they are being unfairly targeted in the offensive.

The U.S. Embassy was locked down and Baghdad is under a curfew.

In his White House appearance Friday with Kevin Rudd, the new Australian prime minister, Bush seemed unsure about the reasons for the timing of the offensive, saying he had yet to talk to Maliki about it.

"I'm not exactly sure what triggered the prime minister's response," he said.

Bush said the offensive showed the newfound capability of the Iraqi armed forces and the resolve of the country's leaders, especially Maliki. But Maliki, who traveled to Basra to personally oversee the operation, faces a heavy political cost if it bogs down, and he is already confronting demands that he resign.

The 4-day-old offensive was launched by Maliki to confront those outside the law, Bush said, explaining that Basra is an Iraqi port with goods and services that has drawn criminals.

"This is a test and a moment for the Iraqi government," he said.

"And it is an interesting moment for the people of Iraq because . . . they must have confidence in their government's ability to protect them and to be evenhanded."

But retired Army Gen. Jack Keane, an architect of last year's troop buildup, suggested Friday that Maliki acted out of personal animus toward Sadr, rather than in the best interest of Iraq.

"He's a very impulsive person," Keane said of Maliki in an NPR interview. "I think that's what happened here. I think he's way out in front of what the military realities on the ground are."

Gary J. Schmitt, a military analyst at the American Enterprise Institute who was an early supporter of the buildup, said he believed the administration was taken by surprise by Maliki's decision, but that with provincial elections set for October, the central government had to act.

"Tactically, this might not have been the optimal moment, or they may not have prepared as well as they should have. But I think it was quite predictable," Schmitt said. "With the elections coming, it should have been understood as a necessity."

The operation could also affect the U.S. presidential campaign. Continued violence would hinder the ability of Republican Sen. John McCain, an early supporter of the troop increase, to campaign on the success of that strategy. It would also trip up Bush's hopes of leaving office with Iraq appearing to at last be on a glide path to stability.

To prevent drastic deterioration, Keane suggested, U.S. troops may need to be sent south to aid the Iraqis, who took control of Basra's province three months ago from British forces, which have been rapidly withdrawing from the region over the last year.

"In the near term, the Iraqis wanted to do this by themselves, and I can understand our commanders certainly letting them go ahead and give it a try," Keane said. "We may find ourselves also providing some ground forces, although we would do that reluctantly because of the efforts that we have up north to finish Al Qaeda once and for all."

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said any decision to move U.S. troops to southern Iraq would be "a commander's call."

But as American commanders struggle to deal with the end of the U.S. buildup, other Pentagon officials said, a move to send backup units to southern Iraq is unlikely.

peter.spiegel@latimes.com

LONDON - The Taliban announced the start of a spring offensive in Afghanistan, promising "painful strikes" to force all enemy soldiers to leave, according to a web message seen by a U.S.-based monitoring service yesterday.

NATO-led forces have conducted wide-ranging offensives in southern Afghanistan to disrupt the insurgents ahead of spring, which each year heralds a surge in violence as the snows melt and fighters emerge from their mountain hideouts.

The web message entitled "Taliban declares beginning of spring offensive in Afghanistan" was from Mullah Bradar Akhund, who styles himself deputy emir of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, according to a translation by the SITE Institute terrorism monitoring service seen in London.

"The winter season is about to end, and here spring looms on the horizon, and in order for the continuity of doing the holy jihad, with the coming spring season, the Islamic Emirate begins a new series of operations under the name 'Admonition'," it said.

"Our aim in these operations is to give the enemy an admonishing lesson through conclusive and painful strikes that he does not anticipate, until he knows and is compelled to end the occupation of Afghanistan and withdraw until the last soldier leaves."

The insurgents have already vowed to intensify attacks on Afghan and foreign troops countrywide, launch a wave of suicide bombings and attack supply lines from Pakistan this year in their campaign to overthrow the pro-Western government.

Last year saw a record level of violence in Afghanistan that killed nearly 6,000 people, about a third of them civilians. More than 200 foreign troops were killed in Afghanistan in 2007.
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Death toll mounts in Baghdad fighting
29 Mar 2008 09:29:01 GMT
Source: Reuters
By Peter Graff

BAGHDAD, March 29 (Reuters) - The death toll mounted on Saturday in fighting in Baghdad where U.S. forces have been drawn deeper into an Iraqi government crackdown on militants loyal to Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.

A top Sadr aide said Sadr's representatives had met Iraq's highest Shi'ite religious authority, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, in an effort to end the violence. The Sadr aide, Salah al-Ubaidi, said Sistani called for a peaceful solution.

At least 75 people have been killed and more than 450 wounded in days of clashes and U.S. air strikes in Sadr City, a vast slum of about 2 million people, said Qassim Mohammed, spokesman for the health directorate for eastern Baghdad.

Health workers say the slum's two hospitals are overflowing and understaffed, and a ring of Iraqi and U.S. forces around Sadr City makes it impossible to evacuate the wounded.

More than 200 people have been reported killed and many hundreds wounded in the five days of fighting across southern Iraq and Baghdad since Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki launched a crackdown on Sadr's followers in the southern city of Basra.

Maliki has announced he will fight the militants in Basra "until the end". He issued orders to his commanders in Baghdad to pursue militants in the capital with "no mercy".

Washington says the crackdown is a sign the Iraqi government is serious about imposing its will and capable of acting on its own. But so far government forces have failed to drive Sadr's fighters from the streets.

U.S. forces described a number of gun battles in Baghdad including one in which they said they killed 10 gunmen who attacked a joint U.S.-Iraqi security station. The Americans have used helicopter gunships and artillery.

Mortar bombs and rockets have caused havoc in the capital all week. Strikes on the fortified Green Zone government and diplomatic compound forced the U.S. embassy to order staff to wear helmets and body armour.

A curfew is in place in Baghdad, closing shops, businesses and schools. Residents are confined to their homes in areas where there has been fighting.

RIFT

The conflict exposes a deep rift within Iraq's majority Shi'ite community, between the political parties in Maliki's government who control the security forces and Sadr's followers who in many areas rule the streets.

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BASRA, Iraq (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/feedarticle/7421330) - Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is vowing to remain in Basra overseeing operations against Shiite militias until security in the city is restored.

Al-Maliki has told tribal leaders in the southern city that he ``will not leave Basra until security is restored'' and those who have taken up arms against the government are punished.

He promised to ``stand up to these gangs'' throughout Iraq and called Basra ``a decisive and final battle.''

Saturday's broadcast by government television came four days after Iraqi troops launched their crackdown against Shiite militias and gangs in the city.

By RYAN LENZ

Associated Press Writer

BAGHDAD (AP) - U.S. jets widened the bombing of Basra on Saturday, dropping two precision-guided bombs on a suspected militia stronghold north of the city, British officials said.

Maj. Tom Holloway, a British military spokesman, said U.S. jets dropped the two bombs on a militia position in Qarmat Ali shortly before 12:30 p.m.

Basra is Iraq's commercial and oil hub, and militant followers of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr have been battling Iraqi and coalition forces in the southern city since Tuesday.

``My understanding was that this was a building that had people who were shooting back at Iraqi ground forces,'' Holloway said.

The number of people killed in the latest strikes was not yet known, he said.

Iraqi police said that earlier in the day a U.S. warplane strafed a house and killed eight civilians, including two women and one child. They spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to release the information. The U.S. military had no immediate comment on the report and it was not possible to independently verify it.

British jets also have been providing air support in the area. The British military had no immediate information but said it also was looking into the reports of civilian casualties.

American forces launched their first airstrikes in Basra Friday as Iraqi troops struggled against strong resistance in the nation's commercial center and headquarters of the vital oil industry. Clashes there have sparked retaliatory fights in Baghdad and other Shiite cities.

The fight for Basra is crucial for Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who flew to Basra earlier this week and is staking his credibility on gaining control of Iraq's second largest city, which has essentially been held by armed groups for nearly three years.

Al-Maliki, speaking on government television Saturday, told tribal leaders in the southern city that he ``will not leave Basra until security is restored'' and those who have taken up arms against the government will be punished.

``We will continue to stand up to these gangs in every inch of Iraq,'' he said. ``This is a decisive and final battle.''

Al-Sadr called on his followers to defy government orders to surrender their weapons, saying arms of the Mahdi Army should only be turned over to a national leadership ``that can get the occupier'' - meaning the Americans their coalition allies - out of Iraq.

The order was made public by Haidar al-Jabiri, a member of the political commission of the Sadrist movement.

AP Television News footage showed smoke rising from the home in Basra's Hananiyah neighborhood where the police said the civilians were killed. Pools of blood and a destroyed pickup truck were seen outside the home hit by the plane.

Sheik Nasir Abdul Hussein in Basra said the strikes came after midnight and were followed by gunmen shooting in the air.

``The thunder of the aircraft frightened children,'' he said. ``The sound smashed glasses, and the area was lighted by aircraft.''

The crackdown in Basra has provoked a violent reaction - especially from al-Sadr's Mahdi Army. His followers accuse rival Shiite parties in the government of trying to crush their movement before provincial elections this fall.

Their anger has led to a sharp increase in attacks against American troops in Shiite areas following months of relative calm after al-Sadr declared a unilateral cease-fire last August and recently extended it for six months.

In extracts of an interview broadcast by the Al-Jazeera television network, al-Sadr called Saturday for Arab leaders to voice their support for Iraq's ``resistance'' to what he calls foreign occupation.

Many Shiite militias, including the Mahdi Army, are believed to receive weapons, money and training from nearby Iran, the world's most populous Shiite nation.

After a Friday deadline for gunmen to surrender their weapons and renounce violence expired with few complying, al-Maliki's office announced a new deal, offering Basra residents unspecified monetary compensation if they turn over ``heavy and medium-size weapons'' by April 8.

In Baghdad, Iraqi police said U.S. helicopters carried out airstrikes on the Shiite neighborhood of Sadr City Friday night. Television footage showed destroyed buildings and the smoking wreckage of at least one car.

The U.S. military said in an e-mail that the only air assault it carried out last night was in the Kazamiyah neighborhood, west of Sadr City, killing 10 militants.

Iraq's Health Ministry, which is close to the Sadrist movement, on Saturday reported at least 75 civilians have been killed and at least 500 others injured in a week of clashes and airstrikes in Sadr City and other eastern Baghdad neighborhoods.

The U.S. military sharply disputes the claims, having said that most of those killed were militia members.

Some 40 policemen in Sadr City handed over their weapons to al-Sadr's local office, one of the policemen told The Associated Press on Saturday.

``We can't fight our brothers in the Mahdi Army, so we came here to submit our weapons,'' the policeman said on condition of anonymity for security reasons.

The police in Sadr City have long been believed heavily influenced or infiltrated by Mahdi militiamen.

AP Television News footage showed a group of about a dozen uniformed police, their faces covered with masks to shield their identity, being met by Sheik Salman al-Feraiji, al-Sadr's chief representative in Sadr City.

Al-Feraiji greeted each policeman and gave them a copy of the Quran and an olive branch as they handed over their guns and ammunition.

more

Link to WaPo Article

By Sudarsan Raghavan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, March 29, 2008; Page A01

BAGHDAD, March 28 -- The gunfire struck like thunderclaps, building to a steady rhythm. American soldiers in a Stryker armored vehicle fired away from one end of the block. At the other end, two groups of Shiite militiamen pounded back with heavy machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades. American helicopters circled above in the blue afternoon sky.

As a heavy barrage erupted outside his parents' house, Abu Mustafa al-Thahabi, a political and military adviser to the Mahdi Army of Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, rushed through the purple gate and took shelter behind the thick walls. He had just spoken with a fighter by cellphone. "I told him not to use that weapon. It's not effective," he said, referring to a rocket-propelled grenade. "I told him to use the IED, the Iranian one," he added, using the shorthand for an improvised explosive device. "This is more effective."

* * * * * (from the third page)

The fighters also said they received neither support nor training from Iran, as U.S. military commanders allege. Their Iranian weapons, they said, were bought from smugglers. They said they had been fighting only American soldiers and had not yet engaged with any Iraqi forces inside Sadr City.

'Standing up' Iraq army looks open-ended

By CHARLES J. HANLEY, AP Special Correspondent

Iraq's new army is "developing steadily," with "strong Iraqi leaders out front," the chief U.S. trainer assured the American people.

That was three-plus years ago, the U.S. Army general was David H. Petraeus, and some of those Iraqi officials at the time were busy embezzling more than $1 billion allotted for the new army's weapons, according to investigators.

The 2004-05 Defense Ministry scandal was just one in an unending series of setbacks in the five-year struggle to "stand up" an Iraqi military and allow hard-pressed U.S. forces to "stand down" from Iraq.

The latest discouraging episode was unfolding this weekend in bloody Basra, the southern city where Iraqi government forces — in their toughest test yet — were still struggling to gain the upper hand in a five-day-old battle with Shiite Muslim militias.

Year by year, the goal of deploying a capable, freestanding Iraqi army has seemed always to slip further into the future. In the latest shift, with Petraeus now U.S. commander in Iraq, the Pentagon's new quarterly status report quietly drops any prediction of when homegrown units will take over security responsibility nationwide, after last year's reports had forecast a transition in 2008.

Earlier, in January last year, President Bush said Iraqi forces would take charge in all 18 Iraqi provinces by November 2007. Four months past that deadline, they control only half the 18.

CNN Article

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- U.S. forces, backing up Iraqi troops battling Shiite militants, bombed Basra on Saturday as about 40 Iraqi police commandos based in Baghdad deserted to join a militia.

* * * * * *

Several U.S. officials told CNN on Friday that the Iraqi military push is not going as well as American officials had hoped.

A U.S. military intelligence analysis found that Iraqi security forces control less than a quarter of Basra, officials in both the United States and Iraq said.

"This is going to go on for a while," one U.S. military official told CNN.

Basra's police units are deeply infiltrated by members of the Mehdi Army.

At least 40 Iraqi national police in Baghdad have deserted and joined the Mehdi Army militia led by Muqtada al-Sadr, taking their U.S.-supplied weapons with them, according to an Iraqi Interior Ministry official.

______________________________________________________________________
In contrast -

British army says it has joined in Iraq fighting by firing artillery into Basra

* * * * *

"Iraqi forces were demanding, requesting our support and we were in a position to provide it," he told BBC television.

He said the situation inside the city was still "relatively fluid."

"There are still a number of militia, criminal strong points in the city and we know where they are," Holloway said. "Elsewhere, they are consolidating their positions and gains from previous days."

due to US "air support" of the operation mounted against Shi'ite militias. Bulk of wounded/dead are civilians, and of course the US military says "no reports of civilian casualties", blah-blah-yadda. And the beat goes on...

Times UK

James Hider in Baghdad

Abu Iman barely flinched when the Iraqi Government ordered his unit of special police to move against al-Mahdi Army fighters in Basra.

His response, while swift, was not what British and US military trainers who have spent the past five years schooling the Iraqi security forces would have hoped for. He and 15 of his comrades took off their uniforms, kept their government-issued rifles and went over to the other side without a second thought.

Such turncoats are the thread that could unravel the British Army’s policy in southern Iraq. The military hoped that local forces would be able to combat extremists and allow the Army to withdraw gradually from the battle-scarred and untamed oil city that has fallen under the sway of Islamic fundamentalists, oil smugglers and petty tribal warlords. But if the British taught the police to shoot straight, they failed to instil a sense of unwavering loyalty to the State.

“We know the outcome of the fighting in advance because we already defeated the British in the streets of Basra and forced them to withdraw to their base,” Abu Iman told The Times.

“If we go back a bit, everyone remembers the fight with the US in Najaf and the damage and defeat we inflicted on them. Do you think the Iraqi Army is better than those armies? We are right and the Government is wrong. [Nouri al] Maliki [the Iraqi Prime Minister] is driving his Government into the ground.”

The reason for his apparent switch of sides was simple: the 36-year-old was already a member of the al-Mahdi Army which, like other militias, has massively infiltrated the British-trained police force in the southern oil city. He claimed that hundreds of others from the 16,000-strong force have also defected to the rebels’ ranks.Abu Iman joined the new Iraqi police force after the invasion, joining the Mugawil, a special police unit infamous for brutality, kidnapping and sectarian murders.

(MORE at the link. Again, the surge is working. Their surge, that is.)

and the sheer folly of attempting to portray "the battle of/for Basra" in simplistic, formulaic terms ("good guys, bad guys, terrorists", etc.).
Reidar Visser has been following the politics of Southern Iraq for several years, and here is his latest update on what is at stakes for the competing actors:

The Enigmatic Second Battle of Basra
By Reidar Visser (www.historiae.org)

On the surface, the story may look plausible enough. A provincial city rich in oil degenerates into mafia-style conditions affecting the security of citizens as well as the national oil revenue; the central government intervenes to clean up. This is how many in the media have been reporting the latest clashes between government forces and militiamen in Basra: the Maliki government has launched a security operation with the single aim of getting rid of unruly militias. Pundits with ties to the Bush administration have added that these are essential “preparations” for this autumn’s provincial elections, or moves to forestall Iranian influence in Basra, or both.

But on closer inspection, there are problems in these accounts. Perhaps most importantly, there is a discrepancy between the description of Basra as a city ruled by militias (in the plural) – which is doubtless correct – and the battlefield facts of the ongoing operations which seem to target only one of these militia groups, the Mahdi Army loyal to Muqtada al-Sadr. Surely, if the aim was to make Basra a safer place, it would have been logical to do something to also stem the influence of the other militias loyal to the local competitors of the Sadrists, the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI), as well as the armed groups allied to the Fadila party (which have dominated the oil protection services for a long time). But so far, only Sadrists have complained about attacks by government forces.

Others may suggest that rather than having to do with the rule of law, this is part of a wider operation in which Maliki in alliance with ISCI are doing their best to marginalize their political enemies locally – in preparation for local elections in October 2008, or with a view to dominate the process of forming federal entities (which could start next month, in April). Maybe it has been supported by Washington, as compensation for the bitter pill which Dick Cheney brought with him in the shape of a demand for early provincial elections? But whereas that sort of interpretation certainly seemed valid during the first battle of Basra (when Maliki arrived in Basra in late May 2006 and enforced a new security regime that was applauded by ISCI and denounced by Fadila), it does not quite make sense today.
(more...)

http://historiae.org/sawlah.asp

The supreme irony of the US's position is that Iranian interests are being promoted, which is the logical outcome of strategies adopted previously to ensure the primacy of the al-Maliki/ISCI (formerly SCIRI) faction, ignoring the nationalist proclivities of the Sadr wing. Or, perhaps that is the intention anyway: preservation of a fragmented country, devoid of a central, organising government, and readily subsumed into a client-state relationship with the US, in order to avoid falling into an Iranian sphere of influence...absolute circular reasoning, but, there you have it.

26 March 2008

as the US military's attention is drawn to renewed fighting in Basra and Baghdad, artillery and air-raids were directed against "PKK strongholds" inside Iraq, near the Turkish border:

Turkish army says kills 15 PKK in N Iraq
Sat Mar 29, 2008 11:18am EDT

ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Turkey's armed forces killed 15 members of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in northern Iraq on Thursday using long-range land weapons, and then followed up with air strikes, they said on Saturday.

It was the first time Turkish forces had killed a group of Kurdish rebels inside northern Iraq since the end of a large-scale ground incursion into the neighboring country last month, according to information given by the armed forces.

The General Staff said on its website that the militants were trying to cross into Turkey, where they planned an attack.

The army fired on the separatists with long-range weapons, killing 15, and then launched air strikes in the same area of northern Iraq on Friday. It was unclear how many had been killed in the air strikes.

On the other side of the border on Saturday, troops pursued rebels in the mountainous province of Sirnak, backed up by attack helicopters, security sources said.
...
http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSL2923297920080329

national-resistance". This via Badger@MissingLinks, excerpted from "Al-Hayat"...

Remarks reported this morning by Maliki, a US State Dept official, and the Iraqi Defense Minister indicate they wish they could put this genie back in the bottle, and the reason appears to be a general anxiety to the effect this could into a national resistance movement.

AlHayat reports this morning (Saturday March 29) the following:

Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki--who extended his deadline for the militias to surrender their arms in exchange for monetary rewards to April 8--was intent on stressing that he did not invite the coalition forces in Iraq to participate in the Basra operations, and persons close to Maliki justified this by explaining the government's desire not to turn this fighting into a confrontation between the resistance and the occupation forces. In addition to confirming the Iraqi forces' ability in the field.

In other words, and it seems quite logical, Maliki is becoming concerned that what was supposed to be a mopping-up operation in Basra shows signs of turning into a nationwide uprising against the occupation forces (to which he owes his safety and that of his government).

A peculiar remark by a State Department official indicates the same anxiety (also quoted in this same Al-Hayat article):

The director of the Iraq office in the American State Department Richard Schmierer told AlHayat, in this same context, that "the Sadr current has a bright political future, once [there has been] success in the operation in Basra, which is something that targets extremists and criminals who have found refuge in the movement of Moqtada al-Sadr, and legal cover, without his agreement".

The remarks of Iraqi defense minister Abdul Qadr Jassem are in the same vein. According to Azzaman

He said at a press conference in Basra that the armed people in Basra took the Iraqi security forces by surprise. "The Iraqi government imagined that this would be a normal operation. It was surprised by the level of resistance, and was obliged to change its policy and tactics."

These remarks by Maliki, US State Dept, and Iraqi Defense Dept indicate a common concern: Maliki: "Please god, don't let the Iraqi people conclude that I am fighting Iraqis with the help of the US forces". State Dept: "Please god, let this end as a law-enforcement operation in Basra and not as a battle to the death with the Sadrists nation-wide, leading to attacks on the Green Zone and so forth". Iraqi Defense Dept: "Please god, we did not envisage what is happening; we had no idea this might turn into anything other than a mopping-up operation."
...
(much more...)

http://tinyurl.com/2ddacd

US gave $300m arms contract to 22-year-old with criminal record

* Suzanne Goldenberg in Washington
* The UK Guardian
* Friday March 28 2008

The Pentagon entrusted a 22-year-old previously arrested for domestic violence and having a forged driving licence to be the main supplier of ammunition to Afghan forces at the height of the battle against the Taliban, it was reported yesterday.

AEY, essentially a one-man operation based in an unmarked office in Miami Beach, Florida, was awarded a contract worth $300m (£150m) to supply the Afghan army and police in January last year. But as the New York Times reported in a lengthy investigation, AEY's president, Efraim Diversoli, 22, supplied stock that was 40 years old and rotting packing material.

"Much of the ammunition comes from the ageing stockpiles of the old communist bloc, including stockpiles that the state department and Nato have determined to be unreliable and obsolete, and have spent millions of dollars to have destroyed," the paper said.

The report on AEY was the latest instance of private firms securing lucrative defence contracts in Iraq and Afghanistan under the Bush administration's policy of privatising growing aspects of the military.

"Operations like this pop up like mushrooms after the rain," said Milton Bearden, a former CIA official who in the 1980s was in charge of arming Afghan rebel groups fighting the former Soviet Union.

"For the most part the US or coalition forces will stick with the Warsaw Pact weapons and munitions systems that were already being used by the Afghans or the Iraqis. There becomes an insatiable demand for certain munitions. Suppliers go all over the world sweeping out warehouses and you end up with boxes of junk and unstable gear if you are not careful."

The army suspended AEY from future contracts during the course of the investigation - although it continues to fill existing orders. The New York Times said Diversoli was unaware of the action, although he was to be notified yesterday.

Until then, however, Diversoli appears to have had a lucrative run. He told the newspaper his firm had won contracts worth at least $200m each year since 2004. AEY also supplied weapons to US agencies, and rifles to Iraqi forces.

In 2006, AEY was among 10 firms bidding on a contract to supply 52 kinds of ammunition for the Afghan security forces. But while his business was taking off, Diversoli was accused of violent behaviour involving two girlfriends and the parking attendant at his apartment building. In December 2006, Diversoli was charged with battery after beating up the parking attendant, according to the newspaper. Police recovered a forged driving licence from Diversoli's flat which led to a separate charge. He entered a programme for first time offenders to avoid trial.

AEY's contract was approved weeks later in January 2007, and Diversoli began scouring the globe for suppliers. Diversoli turned to Albania, which had large weapons dumps. However, the New York Times reported that the firm ended up paying for Kalashnikov rounds that were so obsolete that the US and Nato funded programmes to see them safely destroyed.

AEY also purchased 9 million cartridges from a Czech citizen who had been linked to illegal arms trafficking to Congo.

Link to The Sunday Times Article

From The Sunday Times
March 30, 2008
Hala Jaber, Ali Rifat and Abu Razzak in Basra

The future of Iraq could be decided by the power struggle raging in the country’s second city

* * * * * *

Ragtag members of the Mahdi Army, a heavily armed militia loyal to Moqtada al-Sadr, the radical Shi’ite cleric with close links to Iran, vowed to fight to the death to prevent Maliki from imposing government control on the southern port at the heart of Iraq’s potentially hugely profitable oil industry.

“We have received a shipment of Strela antiaircraft rockets,” Abu Sajad boasted to a Sunday Times reporter.

“We intend to use them to prove to the world that the Mahdi Army will not allow Basra to be turned into a second Falluja [the former centre of anticoalition resistance that was crushed by US-led assaults].”

Maliki says Sadrist foes "worse than al Qaeda"

AP Article - Sadr Returns Fire at Maliki, U.S.:

The radical Shiite cleric also said the impact of the U.S. presence on Iraq was more negative than that of Saddam Hussein's Baath party, ousted in the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.

Al-Sadr alleged that the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a fellow Shiite, was as "distant" from the people of Iraq as Saddam's Sunni-led regime. The government, he said, was "looking after its own interests, not those of the people."

In Iraq, U.S. caught in middle of Shiite rivalry

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Fueling the Sadrists' concerns about Basra is the fact that some of Maliki's trusted security advisors are from the Badr camp. The head of the Basra security command, Gen. Mohan Freiji, is also considered loosely affiliated with the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, or SIIC, said a Western advisor at the Defense Ministry.

The offensive in Basra so far has targeted only Sadrist neighborhoods and has avoided going after the Al Fadila al Islamiya party of Basra Gov. Mohammed Waeli or the Badr Organization, both of which have elements that have contributed to the problems in the port city.

"How could the Sadrists interpret U.S. air support of the Basra operation other than as the manifestation of a U.S.- SIIC alliance?" asked Joost Hiltermann, a Middle East expert with the International Crisis Group think tank.

British officers have noted that the Fadila party is suspected of involvement in oil smuggling, one of the major security concerns in Basra. The Badr Organization has also been implicated in racketeering at ports and controlling the city's police intelligence service, according to the International Crisis Group. Without tackling Fadila and Badr's lawless elements, Basra's problems are likely to continue.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080330/wl_nm/iraq_dc

NAJAF, Iraq (Reuters) - Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr called on his followers on Sunday to stop battling government forces after a week of fighting in Iraq's south and the capital threatened to spiral out of control.

The government immediately welcomed Sadr's statement, saying it would help the authorities impose security in Iraq.

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"Because of the religious responsibility, and to stop Iraqi blood being shed ... we call for an end to armed appearances in Basra and all other provinces," Sadr said in a statement given to journalists by his aides in the holy Shi'ite city of Najaf.

"Anyone carrying a weapon and targeting government institutions will not be one of us," the statement said.

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But a top aide to Sadr, Hazem al-Araji, said Mehdi Army fighters would not hand over their guns. He also said that Sadr's followers had received a guarantee from the government that it would end "random arrests" of Sadr followers.