The Worst Mistake Yet In Iraq

by Martin Sieff
UPI Senior News Analyst
Washington (UPI) April 09, 2007

After four years of war, 3,200 American deaths, 23,000 U.S. troops wounded and possibly in excess of 100,000 Iraqis killed, U.S. policymakers are now making what may prove to be their worst mistake yet: They may be on a new collision course with Moqtada al-Sadr.

U.S. forces backed by Iraqi troops were reported Saturday in fierce clashes with Sadr's Shiite Mahdi Army militia in a bid to wrest control from it of the southern Iraqi town of Diwaniyah.

There is a considerable amount of tactical justification for U.S. forces to clash with Sadr's forces now, especially in Diwaniyah. With a U.S. air strike against Iran's nuclear facilities widely expected in the region, U.S. forces may want to suppress, cripple or intimidate Sadr's militia -- the most pro-Iranian and anti-American of all the Shiite paramilitary groupings in Iraq -- as a preemptive measure.

Also, if Sadr's forces and other allied Shiite groups were to attempt to cut crucial U.S. supply lines from Kuwait and the Persian Gulf up to the main concentration of American forces in Iraq in and around Baghdad, it would also make sense to Pentagon planners to secure Diwaniyah along one of the crucial supply routes first.

In addition, the prevailing wisdom in the Bush administration and the U.S. Department of Defense is that Sadr's militia is suppressed, dispirited and splintering with many of its top leaders already fled to Iran to avoid apprehension as part of the bold new U.S. surge strategy.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., just back from his fifth visit to Iraq during the current conflict, expressed this wisdom in an op-ed in the Washington Post Sunday in which he claimed that Sadr's supporters 'are not contesting American forces."

Unfortunately for McCain, the very same edition of the Post in which his column appeared also contained a news article entitled "U.S. Fights Iraqi Militia in South."

The article made clear that Mahdi Army forces in Diwaniyah, whether on their own initiative or, as appears much more likely, on Sadr's express instructions, are indeed contesting control of the town with the U.S. and Iraqi army troops trying to regain it.

Not for the first time, it may well be that the Pentagon and Bush administration assessment of the raw intelligence data they are receiving from Iraq is based on wishful thinking and is wildly wrong.

Pentagon, analysts remain disproportionately neo-conservative, with many of the most influential ones recruited during the glory days of Deputy defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and Undersecretary for Policy Douglas Feith. Such people usually lacked any Arabic language skills or any first hand experience of the Arab Middle East at all.

And they have consistently been behind the curve in recognizing the rise of the sectarian militias across Iraq, especially the Shiite ones. They have also consistently underestimated the depth of the passionate loyalties and strong networks these groups have been able to build.

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