Iraq
See also Iraq 5 years later
Nuri al-Maliki, a dogged survivor
Apr 24th 2008 | BAGHDAD AND CAIRO
From The Economist print edition
Recent military and political developments offer a gleam of hope that Iraq’s government can start building a stronger consensus towards an eventual peace
In a reversal of fortune, Iraqi government troops took control of districts of Basra that had been held by militias loyal to Muqtada al-Sadr, which had given Iraqi forces a bloody nose only a few weeks ago. Iraq’s prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki, a Shia, seemed to gain popularity among Sunni Arabs and Kurds.
April 10
By STEVEN LEE MYERS
(NYT) WASHINGTON — Declaring that the United States had averted failure in Iraq, President Bush said on Thursday that the senior commander there could “have all the time he needs” before reducing troops further. Mr. Bush ordered shorter tours for troops, but defied calls by Democrats in Congress to withdraw more troops more quickly.
Mr. Bush defended the costs of the war, in lives and money, and said that withdrawing from Iraq would be catastrophic to the national interests. He signaled that an American force nearly as large as at any point in the last five years would remain in Iraq through his presidency, leaving any significant changes in policy to the next president.
April 8
Petraeus urges Iraq pull-out pause
(Al Jazeera) The senior US commander in Iraq has called for a pause in troop withdrawals from the country after July in order to assess last year’s so-called troop “surge”. Testifying in front of US Congress, General David Petraeus warned on Tuesday that “significant” military gains from the “surge” were “fragile and reversible”.
Still hopeful, broadly, about Iraq
GENERAL David Petraeus, America’s most senior general in Iraq, and Ryan Crocker, its ambassador to Baghdad, went before the Senate on Tuesday April 8th to review the state of affairs in Iraq. The last time the two men were called to offer such testimony, in September, they were generally optimistic. A surge of troops, begun early in 2007, had shown measurable progress in diminishing violence said General Petraeus previously. Mr Crocker had added that he believed that this would open the door to political reconciliation.
This time around General Petraeus managed to sound hopeful again: the decline in violence that he had reported in September had continued. He referred to a chart showing “ethno-sectarian” violence down to the levels of mid-2005, and overall civilian deaths at a level not seen since February 2006 when a sacred Shia mosque was bombed. He was careful to call the progress “fragile and reversible”. But he insisted that it was significant: proof that the surge is working.
Fighting has erupted in Baghdad and in Basra, the two main cities, as renegade Shia groups do battle with American and Iraqi government forces. The militias are either affiliated with or recently split from the grouping of Muqtada al-Sadr, a radical Shia firebrand. Nuri al-Maliki, the (Shia) prime minister, says that his legitimate government must quash private militias, but it has failed to do so yet. His critics call his Shia-dominated security forces little more than an quasi-official part of the constellation of armed ethnic or sectarian militias. General Petraeus further complicated the picture by suggesting that Iran is encouraging violence by supplying arms and training. He called Iran the biggest threat to a viable democratic Iraq.
Sadr threatens to end Iraq truce
Muqtada al-Sadr, the Iraqi Shia leader who has been told to disband his Mahdi army or be barred from politics, has threatened to lift a ceasefire that he put in place last August.
An statement from al-Sadr on Tuesday demanded the Iraqi government protect the public from “the booby traps and American militias” or he would end the truce.
April 6
Generally Speaking
By STEVEN LEE MYERS
(NYT Week in Review) WASHINGTON — Iraq may be President Bush’s war, but Gen. David H. Petraeus has become its front man: a clear-speaking, politically savvy, post-Vietnam combat veteran with a Ph.D. from Princeton. Given the failures that have plagued the mission from the start, he may yet be Mr. Bush’s best hope for sustaining public support for an unpopular war once his presidency ends.
Now this astutely political general faces a season of political trials in the politically charged atmosphere of a presidential campaign — not to mention military ones, as illustrated by recent fighting in the southern city of Basra, which calls into question his efforts to prepare the Iraqi Army to stand on its own.
