Maliki to Sadr: Disband your militia or else

[Patroklos]

Can he not just outlaw the organization (Sadr's) for being in open armed rebelion? Regardless of the level of truth in that, if the Republican or Democratic parties here were maintaining 50K odd large armies I think we could disqualify them as a legitmate party and not include them on the ballot.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Patroklos
Can he not just outlaw the organization (Sadr's) for being in open armed rebelion?

Except it's not in open armed rebellion, and even if he bans the JAM, Sadr has a political party with 30 plus seats in the Parliment.

Regardless of the level of truth in that, if the Republican or Democratic parties here were maintaining 50K odd large armies I think we could disqualify them as a legitmate party and not include them on the ballot.

So then the Kurdish parties must be banned, as well as any Sunni party with any connection to the Awakening Councils, because the Peshmerga and the Awakening Councils are not under the control of the central government either. The fact is that Sadr's party is as legitimate as every other party in the Iraqi Parliment, and they ALL have either their own militia, or connections to armed groups not under governmental control.

[Elok]

So what this boils down to is, Maliki is selectively enforcing the rules to his own political advantage. So what? Weren't we just wishing that these people would start acting like a Western-style democracy?

[chequita guevara]

[Dinner]

Here's a bit of good news. The Iraqi government is discharging 1,300 soldiers who they can confirm mutinied or deserted during the Basra debacle. That figure includes an entire Infantry battalion which just deserted.

In the long run they need to get rid of the unreliable ones but the problem is when virtually all of your forces are unreliable then what do you do? The news reports and video suggest a lot more then 1,300 deserted or refused orders so it seems the Iraqi government is trying to minimize this but even so it is a step in the right direction.

Iraq: 1,300 men mutinied or wouldn't fight
Entire infantry battalion was among the deserters during Basra offensive

BAGHDAD - The Iraqi government has dismissed about 1,300 soldiers and policemen who deserted or refused to fight during last month’s offensive against Shiite militias and criminal gangs in Basra, officials said Sunday.

Interior Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf said 921 police and soldiers were fired in Basra. They included 37 senior police officers ranging in rank from lieutenant colonel to brigadier general.

The others were dismissed in Kut, one of the Shiite cities where the fight had spread.

Last month, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki ordered the security forces to confront armed groups in Basra, Iraq’s second largest city.

But they met fierce resistance and the attack quickly ground to a halt as fighting flared across the Shiite south and Baghdad.

Since then, government officials have revealed that about 1,000 members of the security forces — including an entire infantry battalion — had mutinied, on some cases handing over vehicles and weapons to the militias.

The majority of Iraqi soldiers and police are Shiites.

Speaking in Basra, Khalaf said those dismissed included 421 police officers and 500 soldiers who had not returned to duty in the southern port city and would be tried by military courts.

“Some of them were sympathetic with these lawbreakers, some refused to (go into) battle for political or national or sectarian or religious reasons,” Khalaf said.

Room for reinstatement
But he said that those who returned in coming days and could prove they had been prevented from doing so by the militias would be reinstated.

In Kut, a senior police officer said 400 local policemen have been sacked for refusing orders to combat the militias, including the Mahdi Army of anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

The officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media, said the Interior Ministry in Baghdad had ordered the policemen removed from duty on Saturday.

Although fighting in Basra eased in late March, security operations are continuing.

Fighting in Baghdad’s Sadr City, a stronghold of al-Sadr’s militia, has been ongoing for the past two weeks. Fresh clashes were reported Sunday and at least two rockets or mortar rounds were fired at the capital’s Green Zone, which houses diplomatic missions and much of Iraq’s government.

A senior military commander said Sunday that Iraqi forces in Basra were expanding their sweep of six neighborhoods, with army and police cordoning off the areas while searching for illegal weapons, ammunition and criminal elements.

Weapons, suspects in new sweep
Lt. Gen. Mohan al-Fireji said the operation, which started on Saturday, had netted significant amounts of weapons, roadside bombs and drugs. He said a large number of suspects had been detained, but he provided no figures.

Al-Sadr, who is believed to be in Iran, repeated on Saturday his demand for American soldiers to leave the country and urged his fighters not to target fellow Iraqis “unless they are helping the (U.S.) occupation.”

Despite the strident rhetoric, however, there were signs that al-Sadr was trying to calm his militia to avoid all-out war with the Americans. Al-Sadr is also under pressure from al-Maliki, also a Shiite, to disband the Mahdi Army or face a ban from politics.

Meanwhile, an Apache helicopter accidentally destroyed a U.S. Humvee in eastern Baghdad when a Hellfire missile missed its target and struck the armored vehicle instead, the military said Sunday.

Two U.S. soldiers and three Iraqi civilians were injured in the incident on Saturday, the statement said.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24094518/

Lord knows the heads of some higher ups need to roll too. I mean if you lose control of 40% of your capital and get your ass handed to you by a militia then someone needs to pay the price. Luckily the US was there to restore order but it is clear the Iraqi government isn't capable of doing squat.

[Patroklos]

get your ass handed to you by a militia

Your powers of delusion are indeed remarkable.

Oerdin

[Dinner]

I believe you were the delusional one claiming there were no desertions so please don't mind if I don't take your opinion seriously.

[Patroklos]

Please feel free to quote me saying there were no desertions.

As per usual when I request you quoting me saying such things, I expect either 1.) silence as you pray this thread buries itself or 2.) a smoke screen of insults while you still fail to produce a quote.

[Dinner]

Bah, I'm not going to look through dozens of threads. You know it, I know it. That's good enough.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by Oerdin
Bah, I'm not going to look through dozens of threads.

[Zkribbler]

The Iraqi government has dismissed about 1,300 soldiers and policemen who deserted ...

If they've already deserted, isn't firing them redundant?

[Wezil]

Takes them off the payroll.

Np, just turning another corner in Iraq. Things are going well.

[C0ckney]

for all the $billions spent on the iraqi army, you would hope they could, yknow, fight a bit.

[Dinner]

Here's an NPR radio article on just how disorganized the Iraqi Army still is even after years of American help.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=89631330

[Patroklos]

Still waiting for that quote...