Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
New York Times
April 21, 2008
Pg. 12
By Erica Goode
BAGHDAD — Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, making an unannounced stop in Baghdad on Sunday, praised the Iraqi government’s decision to take on Shiite militia members in Basra and in Baghdad and painted an upbeat picture of the Iraqi government’s progress toward unifying the country.
Ms. Rice, who visited the Iraqi capital on her way to a conference in Kuwait of Iraq’s neighbors, said that Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki’s government “has made a choice to pursue militias and is willing to bear the consequences.”
Conceding that it had been “a long five years,” Ms. Rice said that Iraq had made “significant progress, remarkable progress,” however fragile, and she quoted President Jalal Talabani, who had said that the country was experiencing “a political spring.”
As rockets and mortars crashed into the fortified Green Zone, Ms. Rice met with Mr. Maliki, Mr. Talabani and other government leaders, then spoke briefly at the United States Embassy and dedicated a plaque there to commemorate two embassy employees killed in rocket attacks on the zone.
“Iraqi leaders believe that they have made some tough choices and some tough decisions,” Ms. Rice said at a news conference after her remarks at the embassy, “and they want that acknowledged and they want to move forward with their Arab neighbors.”
She played down recent violence in various parts of Iraq, saying that there would be days when “extremists manage, despite the fact they clearly are weakened,” to conduct suicide bombings and other attacks. But she said that some of the violence had been a byproduct of the Iraqi government’s “very good decision” to try to wrest the southern port city of Basra from the control of Shiite militias. Two suicide bombings in three days last week killed at least 80 people in Diyala Province, north of Baghdad.
Ms. Rice said that she was not sure how to interpret a statement on Saturday by the Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr, whose Mahdi Army fighters have been battling Iraqi and American forces in Sadr City and in Basra, that he would declare “war until liberation” if the fighting against his militia forces continued.
“I don’t know whether to take him seriously or not,” she said.
But she said that American and Iraqi forces were not trying to block the Sadrist movement from Iraq’s political process. “I didn’t hear anybody say” that the Sadrists “shouldn’t try again to get the votes of the Iraqi people, as long as they are not armed,” Ms. Rice said.
Iraq’s national security council issued a statement this month saying that all political parties must disband their militias if they wished to run in provincial elections scheduled for October.
Some political analysts have said that what underlies the Iraqi government’s move against the Mahdi Army is a rivalry between two armed Shiite political groups, Mr. Sadr’s fighters and the Badrists. The Badrists are the armed wing of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, a large Shiite political bloc that supports Mr. Maliki. Many members of the Badr Organization joined the government’s security forces early in the Iraq conflict, and have been battling the Sadr-led forces.
But Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker, who joined Ms. Rice at the news conference, drew a distinction between Mr. Sadr’s supporters and the Badr group. “The Badr Organization made the choice a while back that they were going to step away from a militia identity and move into politics,” Mr. Crocker said. “That’s the choice now in front of the Sadr movement.”
Mr. Crocker cast the Iraqi government’s initiative in Basra and Baghdad as “a defining event,” and said that it represented “the state asserting itself against those who would attack the state.”
He said that he believed that popular support for Mr. Sadr had waned since 2004, as the government had grown stronger, and that “the Iraqi people are saying, ‘We don’t want this anymore.’ ”
Mr. Sadr on Sunday criticized Ms. Rice’s visit and issued a sharp protest against the killing of militia members by Iraqi and American forces in Nasiriya, just northwest of Basra. The American military said that 40 militia members were killed on Saturday and 40 others were arrested in the confrontation between the militia fighters and 300 Iraqi troops, advised by American special operations forces.
But Abdul Hussain al-Safi, Nasiriya’s police chief, said that 23 militia members had been killed and 44 wounded in the clash. Local officials on Sunday lifted a curfew that had been imposed on the city Friday night.
In Diyala Province on Sunday, three people were kidnapped in Muqdadiya, and two others were killed, including a police officer, when a homemade bomb exploded in Khalis, northwest of Baquba.
And as Ms. Rice spoke in the Green Zone, heavy clashes continued between Mahdi Army members and American and Iraqi forces in parts of the Sadr City neighborhood of Baghdad. American military officials have said that their efforts in the sprawling Shiite enclave are limited to preventing militia fighters from firing rockets and mortars at the Green Zone.
Officials from two hospitals in Sadr City said that they had received the bodies of at least 22 people, including 4 children and 2 women, killed when a mortar shell exploded, and that at least 20 people had been wounded.
Mudhafer al-Husaini and Ali Hameed contributed reporting from Baghdad, and Iraqi employees of The New York Times from Baghdad, Diyala Province and Nasiriya.
April 21, 2008
Pg. 12
By Erica Goode
BAGHDAD — Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, making an unannounced stop in Baghdad on Sunday, praised the Iraqi government’s decision to take on Shiite militia members in Basra and in Baghdad and painted an upbeat picture of the Iraqi government’s progress toward unifying the country.
Ms. Rice, who visited the Iraqi capital on her way to a conference in Kuwait of Iraq’s neighbors, said that Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki’s government “has made a choice to pursue militias and is willing to bear the consequences.”
Conceding that it had been “a long five years,” Ms. Rice said that Iraq had made “significant progress, remarkable progress,” however fragile, and she quoted President Jalal Talabani, who had said that the country was experiencing “a political spring.”
As rockets and mortars crashed into the fortified Green Zone, Ms. Rice met with Mr. Maliki, Mr. Talabani and other government leaders, then spoke briefly at the United States Embassy and dedicated a plaque there to commemorate two embassy employees killed in rocket attacks on the zone.
“Iraqi leaders believe that they have made some tough choices and some tough decisions,” Ms. Rice said at a news conference after her remarks at the embassy, “and they want that acknowledged and they want to move forward with their Arab neighbors.”
She played down recent violence in various parts of Iraq, saying that there would be days when “extremists manage, despite the fact they clearly are weakened,” to conduct suicide bombings and other attacks. But she said that some of the violence had been a byproduct of the Iraqi government’s “very good decision” to try to wrest the southern port city of Basra from the control of Shiite militias. Two suicide bombings in three days last week killed at least 80 people in Diyala Province, north of Baghdad.
Ms. Rice said that she was not sure how to interpret a statement on Saturday by the Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr, whose Mahdi Army fighters have been battling Iraqi and American forces in Sadr City and in Basra, that he would declare “war until liberation” if the fighting against his militia forces continued.
“I don’t know whether to take him seriously or not,” she said.
But she said that American and Iraqi forces were not trying to block the Sadrist movement from Iraq’s political process. “I didn’t hear anybody say” that the Sadrists “shouldn’t try again to get the votes of the Iraqi people, as long as they are not armed,” Ms. Rice said.
Iraq’s national security council issued a statement this month saying that all political parties must disband their militias if they wished to run in provincial elections scheduled for October.
Some political analysts have said that what underlies the Iraqi government’s move against the Mahdi Army is a rivalry between two armed Shiite political groups, Mr. Sadr’s fighters and the Badrists. The Badrists are the armed wing of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, a large Shiite political bloc that supports Mr. Maliki. Many members of the Badr Organization joined the government’s security forces early in the Iraq conflict, and have been battling the Sadr-led forces.
But Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker, who joined Ms. Rice at the news conference, drew a distinction between Mr. Sadr’s supporters and the Badr group. “The Badr Organization made the choice a while back that they were going to step away from a militia identity and move into politics,” Mr. Crocker said. “That’s the choice now in front of the Sadr movement.”
Mr. Crocker cast the Iraqi government’s initiative in Basra and Baghdad as “a defining event,” and said that it represented “the state asserting itself against those who would attack the state.”
He said that he believed that popular support for Mr. Sadr had waned since 2004, as the government had grown stronger, and that “the Iraqi people are saying, ‘We don’t want this anymore.’ ”
Mr. Sadr on Sunday criticized Ms. Rice’s visit and issued a sharp protest against the killing of militia members by Iraqi and American forces in Nasiriya, just northwest of Basra. The American military said that 40 militia members were killed on Saturday and 40 others were arrested in the confrontation between the militia fighters and 300 Iraqi troops, advised by American special operations forces.
But Abdul Hussain al-Safi, Nasiriya’s police chief, said that 23 militia members had been killed and 44 wounded in the clash. Local officials on Sunday lifted a curfew that had been imposed on the city Friday night.
In Diyala Province on Sunday, three people were kidnapped in Muqdadiya, and two others were killed, including a police officer, when a homemade bomb exploded in Khalis, northwest of Baquba.
And as Ms. Rice spoke in the Green Zone, heavy clashes continued between Mahdi Army members and American and Iraqi forces in parts of the Sadr City neighborhood of Baghdad. American military officials have said that their efforts in the sprawling Shiite enclave are limited to preventing militia fighters from firing rockets and mortars at the Green Zone.
Officials from two hospitals in Sadr City said that they had received the bodies of at least 22 people, including 4 children and 2 women, killed when a mortar shell exploded, and that at least 20 people had been wounded.
Mudhafer al-Husaini and Ali Hameed contributed reporting from Baghdad, and Iraqi employees of The New York Times from Baghdad, Diyala Province and Nasiriya.