Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
NPR
April 1, 2008
Day to Day (NPR), 12:00 PM
ALEX CHADWICK: First, we're going to the Pentagon and NPR defense correspondent Guy Raz, who's been talking to his sources in Washington and Baghdad about the blowup over this last week in southern Iraq, in Basra. Guy, welcome back.
GUY RAZ: Hi, Alex.
CHADWICK: So the first thing to note is, there is word today that Britain is now not going to withdraw fifteen hundred troops that were scheduled to go home from Basra, this is an area of British military responsibility. What do you have on that?
RAZ: Right. And essentially, they're going to keep all 4,000 of their troops in Iraq, we assume, through the end of the year. Now, it should be said, Alex, that the British troops are, basically, on the outskirts of Basra, what they call an "over watch" mission. So they're really loosely involved in the fighting, and they were loosely involved in the fighting in Basra, basically some limited artillery support and essentially an advisory role during the fighting that took place last week.
CHADWICK: All right. Well, now to what happened over the weekend. Iraqi politicians got a truce after a week of fighting in Basra between the Iraqi army and that powerful Shiite militia. It leaves the militia leader, Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, even stronger, and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki further weakened. So Guy, here's the question, why did the Iraqi government decide to send troops into Basra in the first place?
RAZ: In a sense, it was a conflict that's been brewing between the three largest Shiite political parties and their respective militias over the past year. Basically, the city of Basra has been and continues to be a place that has been run by these different Shiite militias, two of them loyal to the Iraqi government and one of them loyal to the Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. It's called the Jaysh al-Mahdi, or the Mahdi Militia. So essentially, the Iraqi government has been under pressure by the U.S. to go in to regain control over Basra. And that's why Maliki decided to go in last week.
CHADWICK: And the immediate reaction from the Pentagon and the White House was, hey, this is good.
RAZ: Right. In fact, the defense secretary, Robert Gates, and the president both called it an example of the Iraqis taking the lead. You know, essentially, that it shows the Iraqi army can carry out these kinds of operations independently, and that the Maliki government is taking on some of these militia groups.
CHADWICK: But then, when it turned out they couldn't take on these militia groups or not take them on successfully, U.S. military officials said, hey, this is disastrous.
RAZ: Well, they've been saying that privately, of course. And, you know, really they couldn't have stopped it. I mean, what happened was, the Iraqi prime minister and his top commander in southern Iraq, a major general called Mohsen al-Faraji actually approached Petraeus and his staff a few weeks ago. They laid out the details of their plan, but U.S. military officials have told me that they weren't in a position to stop Maliki from doing this because they've essentially been hounding him to go down to Basra and take care of the problem. Well, the main issue they had with Maliki's plan was, they felt it was overly ambitious, and they weren't confident that the Iraqi government and its army could take on the better trained and the battle hardened Mahdi Militia. And in fact, one U.S. military official I spoke to said, even though there's a truce now, this is the beginning of a long struggle over control in southern Iraq between these competing militias.
CHADWICK: So what is it that the U.S. military analyst you spoke with said was the hopeful sign?
RAZ: Well, first it should be made clear, Alex, that the Iraqi army lost. It's not a stalemate. No matter how the government in Iraq spins it, the Iraqi army was routed by the Mahdi Militia. But at the same time, it was the largest Iraqi military operation since the Saddam Hussein era when they invaded Kuwait in 1991. I mean, the Iraqi army moved thousands, as many as 10,000 soldiers down to Basra. They moved weapons and vehicles hundreds of miles, and they launched a pretty sophisticated operation. And so even though they were defeated, the fact that they could actually do this, operationally, is an enormous improvement over where the Iraqi army was even six months ago.
CHADWICK: But Guy, isn't this analysis, well, the logistics worked, but when they got there they lost the battle? Isn't that really military lipstick on a military pig?
RAZ: Well, you could look at it that way. But at the same time, you could say, the Iraqi army got the logistics down. They obviously didn't get the planning and the strategy down. And so some military officials are saying, look, in a year, in two years' time, when they're better trained and they're better strategic fighters, they might be able to take on some of these militia groups more effectively.
CHADWICK: NPR's Guy Raz on what military analysts are saying in Baghdad and the Pentagon about the fighting over the weekend in Basra. Guy, thank you.
RAZ: Thank you, Alex.
April 1, 2008
Day to Day (NPR), 12:00 PM
ALEX CHADWICK: First, we're going to the Pentagon and NPR defense correspondent Guy Raz, who's been talking to his sources in Washington and Baghdad about the blowup over this last week in southern Iraq, in Basra. Guy, welcome back.
GUY RAZ: Hi, Alex.
CHADWICK: So the first thing to note is, there is word today that Britain is now not going to withdraw fifteen hundred troops that were scheduled to go home from Basra, this is an area of British military responsibility. What do you have on that?
RAZ: Right. And essentially, they're going to keep all 4,000 of their troops in Iraq, we assume, through the end of the year. Now, it should be said, Alex, that the British troops are, basically, on the outskirts of Basra, what they call an "over watch" mission. So they're really loosely involved in the fighting, and they were loosely involved in the fighting in Basra, basically some limited artillery support and essentially an advisory role during the fighting that took place last week.
CHADWICK: All right. Well, now to what happened over the weekend. Iraqi politicians got a truce after a week of fighting in Basra between the Iraqi army and that powerful Shiite militia. It leaves the militia leader, Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, even stronger, and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki further weakened. So Guy, here's the question, why did the Iraqi government decide to send troops into Basra in the first place?
RAZ: In a sense, it was a conflict that's been brewing between the three largest Shiite political parties and their respective militias over the past year. Basically, the city of Basra has been and continues to be a place that has been run by these different Shiite militias, two of them loyal to the Iraqi government and one of them loyal to the Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. It's called the Jaysh al-Mahdi, or the Mahdi Militia. So essentially, the Iraqi government has been under pressure by the U.S. to go in to regain control over Basra. And that's why Maliki decided to go in last week.
CHADWICK: And the immediate reaction from the Pentagon and the White House was, hey, this is good.
RAZ: Right. In fact, the defense secretary, Robert Gates, and the president both called it an example of the Iraqis taking the lead. You know, essentially, that it shows the Iraqi army can carry out these kinds of operations independently, and that the Maliki government is taking on some of these militia groups.
CHADWICK: But then, when it turned out they couldn't take on these militia groups or not take them on successfully, U.S. military officials said, hey, this is disastrous.
RAZ: Well, they've been saying that privately, of course. And, you know, really they couldn't have stopped it. I mean, what happened was, the Iraqi prime minister and his top commander in southern Iraq, a major general called Mohsen al-Faraji actually approached Petraeus and his staff a few weeks ago. They laid out the details of their plan, but U.S. military officials have told me that they weren't in a position to stop Maliki from doing this because they've essentially been hounding him to go down to Basra and take care of the problem. Well, the main issue they had with Maliki's plan was, they felt it was overly ambitious, and they weren't confident that the Iraqi government and its army could take on the better trained and the battle hardened Mahdi Militia. And in fact, one U.S. military official I spoke to said, even though there's a truce now, this is the beginning of a long struggle over control in southern Iraq between these competing militias.
CHADWICK: So what is it that the U.S. military analyst you spoke with said was the hopeful sign?
RAZ: Well, first it should be made clear, Alex, that the Iraqi army lost. It's not a stalemate. No matter how the government in Iraq spins it, the Iraqi army was routed by the Mahdi Militia. But at the same time, it was the largest Iraqi military operation since the Saddam Hussein era when they invaded Kuwait in 1991. I mean, the Iraqi army moved thousands, as many as 10,000 soldiers down to Basra. They moved weapons and vehicles hundreds of miles, and they launched a pretty sophisticated operation. And so even though they were defeated, the fact that they could actually do this, operationally, is an enormous improvement over where the Iraqi army was even six months ago.
CHADWICK: But Guy, isn't this analysis, well, the logistics worked, but when they got there they lost the battle? Isn't that really military lipstick on a military pig?
RAZ: Well, you could look at it that way. But at the same time, you could say, the Iraqi army got the logistics down. They obviously didn't get the planning and the strategy down. And so some military officials are saying, look, in a year, in two years' time, when they're better trained and they're better strategic fighters, they might be able to take on some of these militia groups more effectively.
CHADWICK: NPR's Guy Raz on what military analysts are saying in Baghdad and the Pentagon about the fighting over the weekend in Basra. Guy, thank you.
RAZ: Thank you, Alex.