War on Terror

Iraq, Political wind, War on Terror

Sadr heeds Reid; cuts and runs

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During the debate in the Senate today, someone ought to let Harry Reid know that at least one person has taken his advice:

Muqtada al Sadr, the leader of the Mahdi Army, has fled Iraq and sought shelter in Iran for the second time this year, according to U.S. military sources. Sadr left Iraq after Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki issued an unusually strong demand for the Mahdi Army to disband, and as Iraqi and Coalition forces have battled Sadr’s forces in Baghdad, Diwaniyah, and Samawa in the south.

In Samawa, Iraqi Army and police units deployed throughout the city “after negotiations with Sadr’s office in the city reached a ‘deadlock.'” Sadr sought a truce with the provincial government. Eight were killed and 66 wounded in the fighting over the past several days. In Diwaniyah, the 8th Iraqi Army Division paired up with the Hilla SWAT special police and killed nine members of the “rogue Jaysh al-Mahdi [Mahdi Army] militia and captured four others on July 7.” In Baghdad, Iraqi Special Operations Forces captured seven members of “a rogue Jaysh al-Madhi” cell on July 7. This cell was part of “a network involved in death squad activities, kidnapping and assassination activities.”

And the Washington Post might want to actually fact check its sources in Iraq:

While the Washington Post is reporting a massive suicide attack outside of Fallujah, claiming 23 killed and 27 wounded in an attack on an Iraqi Army recruitment center, Multinational Forces West told The Fourth Rail that this report is false. The Post report is based on a Voice of Iraq article, which claimed 17 killed and 27 wounded.

1st Lt. Shawn Mercer, the deputy Public Affairs Officer for Multinational Forces West, he denied such an attack took place in an email. “We don’t have any reports of an attack on a recruiting center (or any static location) and certainly not with that kind of death toll in our AO,” said 1st Lt. Mercer. He noted there was an IED attack near Abu Ghraib that killed one Iraqi soldier and wounded three on Saturday night, and suspected the reports may have been confused. “I’m not sure how the reporting on this got so confused but the sources were not reliable,” he stated. In March 2007, Voice of Iraq falsely reported an attack on U.S. forces outside Rutbah.

Iran, Iraq, Political wind, War on Terror

The Appeasement Caucus

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Terrorists do not hold elections and they cannot win the War on Terror on the ground. Yet Senators Lugar and Domenici (as well a slew of Democrats in Congress) seem more concerned with their own reelection chances than the welfare of the Iraqi people or taking the fight to the enemy, as the Wall Street Journal indicates this morning:

The last of the brigades President Bush ordered for his military surge in Iraq only arrived in the country last month, and they have been heavily engaged with al Qaeda in the Sunni triangle around Baghdad as part of the new military strategy. So it’s especially distressing that Republican Senators should decide that this is the time to separate themselves from Mr. Bush on Iraq.

“I do not doubt the assessments of military commanders that there has been some progress in security,” Richard Lugar, the ranking Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, declared on the Senate floor late last month. But that didn’t stop Mr. Lugar from concluding that its chances of success are “very limited.” Why? The “short period framed by our own domestic political debate” won’t allow it, he says. Instead, Mr. Lugar wants a “sustainable bipartisan strategy” along the lines recommended in November by the Iraq Study Group. Last week, New Mexico’s Pete Domenici noisily joined this bandwagon, as have several other Republican Senators, some of whom face tough re-election fights next year.

So let’s see. Mr. Bush and al Qaeda’s Ayman al Zawahiri agree that Iraq — not Afghanistan — is the central front in the war between them. But GOP Senators looking ahead to the 2008 elections have decided that the real front in the war lies not in Baghdad or Baquba but in the Beltway, and that a “bipartisan” redeployment is a worthier goal than backing the current battle plan.

The Washington Times also weighed in this morning:

It’s important to be at least somewhat grounded in reality about what is significant about the defeatist posture taken by Mr. Lugar et. al. — and what is business as usual for a certain type of Republican… In short, no one remotely familiar with their records would consider any of them to be among the Senate’s conservative intellectual giants. On the contrary, they are poll-driven politicians who want to hold on to power, and the polls indicate that many Americans are decidedly unhappy about the direction of the war.
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The most pernicious thing about all the talk of bringing U.S. troops home is the fact that it would reverse the successes that American troops are achieving. For months, this newspaper has reported the story of how Sunnis in Anbar province in western Iraq are taking up arms against al Qaeda. The same thing now appears to be occurring in Baqubah, located in Diyala province northeast of Baghdad, in which American troops launched an offensive June 19 to dislodge al Qaeda forces. “The big news on the streets today is that the people of Baqubah are generally ecstatic, although many hold in reserve a serious concern that we will abandon them again,” blogger Michael Yon [Editor — See his latest dispatch here], who is embedded with U.S. troops in Baqubah, reported Friday. Similarly, Michael Gordon of the New York Times also reported Friday on the remarkable successes that U.S. troops in Diyala are having. It should also be noted that Iran — now a leading supporter of both Sunni and Shi’ite jihadists fighting U.S. forces in Iraq — has shown itself to be vulnerable to economic pressure — witness the riots over gasoline rationing that have swept the country.

So what do senators want to do? To throw the mullahs a diplomatic lifeline. Mr. Domenici, along with Sen. Ken Salazar, Colorado Democrat, and Republican Sens. Robert Bennett of Utah and Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, who both should know better, is supporting S. 1545, a bill to make the 79 recommendations of the Iraq Study Group (including talks with Tehran and Damascus) the official policy of the U.S. government. When you combine this foolishness with the parade of amendments calling for troop “redeployments” and setting timetables for withdrawal from Iraq by April 1, 2008, it’s clear that Mr. Reid and his “bipartisan” coalition of helpers are poised to send another unmistakable message of weakness to the jihadists starting today.

Instead of talking about withdrawing troops, Congress ought to conduct a full debate about finally confronting Iran. Senator Joseph Lieberman took up that gauntlet last week and we will see if anyone there other than he has such courage.