WP: Threat of Shiite Militias Now Seen As Iraq's Most Critical Challenge

[DeepModem Mom]

Threat of Shiite Militias Now Seen As Iraq's Most Critical Challenge
By Jonathan Finer
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, April 8, 2006; Page A01

BAGHDAD, April 7 -- Shiite Muslim militias pose the greatest threat to security in many parts of Iraq, having killed more people in recent months than the Sunni Arab-led insurgency, and will likely present the most daunting and critical challenge for Iraq's new government, U.S. military and diplomatic officials say.

Assassinations, many carried out by Shiite gunmen against Sunni Arabs in Baghdad and elsewhere, accounted for more than four times as many deaths in March as bombings and other mass-casualty attacks, according to military data. And most officials agree that only a small percentage of shooting deaths are ever reported.

The surge in sectarian killings, triggered by the bombing of a Shiite shrine in Samarra in late February, had slowed in recent weeks. It was uncertain if attacks on prominent Shiite mosques Thursday and Friday would signal an onset of renewed bloodletting.

While acknowledging the instability caused by Shiite armed groups, the largest of which are linked to the country's dominant political parties and operate among Iraq's police and army, U.S. and Iraqi officials here have yet to implement, or even publicly articulate, a strategy for addressing the problem....

***

Militias last emerged as a top U.S. concern in 2004, when the American and Iraqi armies spent months putting down violent uprisings by the Mahdi Army, a militia loyal to the firebrand cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, in Baghdad, Najaf and other cities. But the problem is far thornier now, U.S. officials say, because the militias have added thousands of foot soldiers and gained new political stature....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/07/AR2006040701719_pf.html

[Kagemusha]

1. Silly kids. Bet the militias gained stature BECAUSE of Najaf 2004.

At least in the case of the Mahdi Army.

[harrison]

2. Well... a year ago the Pentagon leaked plans to implement

the Salvadoran Option which is the fancy term for "Death Sqauds". The US sponsored Death Squads in El Salvador some twenty years ago to help pacify the country of leftists. According to the leak, the Death Squads in Iraq were to be used to subdue the Sunnis who are at the heart of the insurgency.

So, we have death squads as predicted. Are they out of control? Or are they doing the job the Pentagon wanted?

Death squads to pacify the country so that we can have access to the lands of oil in a diminishing oil age.

Our economy is based upon cheap oil.

I guess we are going to do whatever it takes.