Jihadi Du Jour: Iraqi PM says ready to tackle militias

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq's prime minister pledged on Wednesday to crack down on illegal militias after coming under pressure from Washington to take steps to curb violence and allow U.S. troops to go home.

But in a sign of challenges Iraqi leaders face in achieving "benchmarks" agreed with an impatient U.S. administration before congressional elections next month, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki was the object of fresh anger after an overnight raid by U.S. and Iraqi forces killed at least four people and wounded 20 in the Shi'ite stronghold of Sadr City in Baghdad.

The U.S. military said Iraqi special forces backed by U.S. airstrikes conducted the raid "to capture a top illegal armed group commander directing widespread death squad activity."

A relaxed-looking Maliki told a news conference he would deal with the militias: "The state is the only one that has the right to carry weapons," he said. "We will deal with anybody who is outside the law.

"Everyone now realizes that the existence of armed groups and militias harms the stability and unity of the state."

Maliki has struggled to balance the conflicting demands of his Shi'ite-led coalition government. Sectarian and militia violence has escalated, raising fears of a full-scale civil war.

Six months after Maliki took office, with vital support from Shi'ite cleric and militia leader Moqtada al-Sadr, he has made little headway on pledges to curb activity by militias.

Less than two weeks before the November 7 U.S. congressional elections that have put President George W. Bush's Republicans on the defensive over their Iraq strategy, ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad and the military commander in Baghdad said on Tuesday success was still possible, and on a "realistic timetable."

Khalilzad said Iraqi leaders had agreed to a timetable of political and security measures and he expected "significant progress" on the steps in the next 12 months.

In the meantime, an opinion piece in WAPO titled "Insult to Injury in Iraq" by Frederick W. Kagan complains that the US wants the Iraqi government to take a larger role in governing...[?]

Such arguments have been latent in the Bush administration's Iraq strategy and explicit in Democratic critiques of that strategy for some time. Now Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has declared: "It's their country. . . . They're going to have to govern it, they're going to have to provide security for it, and they're going to have to do it sooner rather than later."

...The current crisis in Iraq is no more just an Iraqi problem than it has ever been. The U.S. military destroyed Iraq's government and all institutions able to keep civil order. It designated itself an "occupying force," thereby accepting the responsibility to restore and maintain such order. And yet U.S. Central Command never actually made establishing order and security a priority. Its commander throughout the insurgency, Gen. John Abizaid, has instead repeatedly declared that America's role is primarily to train Iraqi forces to put down their own rebellion and maintain order.

What destroyed government is Mr. Kagan refering to? Sadaam Hussein's? I imagine he would rather have a mass murderer's government puppets stayed in place to maintain "order and security"?

I think Frederick Kagan has missed the point. The US was always there to assist in establishing a new and free government in Iraq, with the intention of handing over power, at the right time. Perhaps Mr. Kagan's watch, along with most of the American left, is running a little fast.

Labels: Iraq, Nouri al-Maliki, United States, War On Terror