U.S. Ground Troops Say Iraq Is Not ‘Worth Another Soldier’S Life’

‘To this day, I don’t think we…understand how infiltrated or complicit the national police are’ with Islamist Shi’ite militias, says one American soldier. U.S. Ground Troops Say Iraq Is Not ‘Worth Another Soldier’s Life’By Cliff Montgomery – Nov. 11th, 2007Bush Administration claims that Saddam Hussein’s Iraq still held vast stores of WMDs and had some mysterious relationship with al-Qaeda were proven to be a pack of bald-faced lies by reporters like this one, who primarily work outside the corporate media.Having thus obviously lied to put American troops into Iraq, the administration needed some new lies to keep them there. Perhaps the most durable of these has been the fraud that we are somehow “spreading democracy” by forcing others to live as we live, and think as we think. But it has not gone well.So Bush now crows that his recent American “troop surge” around the Baghdad area has stopped much of the killing and mayhem which has surrounded the city since his Iraq misadventure began in 2003.The Bush Administration however conveniently fails to acknowledge that the violence only dropped off after several Baghdad neighborhoods had been “cleansed” of Sunni Muslims by sectarian Shi’ite militias.But U.S. soldiers on the ground in Iraq–such as those from the 1st Battalion, 18th Infantry Regiment, 1st Infantry Division, who came to southwestern Baghdad fourteen months ago–know what’s really going on there.They’ve seen with their own eyes how their “partners” in the Iraqi National Police soon became some of their most wily enemies. They’ve personally seen how Shi’ite militiamen–working with that same Iraqi government-sponsored “police force”–actively worked to wipe out a neighborhood of decent, middle-class Sunni families with as much ruthlessness as Hitler’s worst henchmen.Next month, those brave American troops will finish their Iraq tour. Their time in Sadiyah has changed them.They now have an intimate knowledge of the absolute hatred which still thrives between Iraq’s rival religious and ethnic groups, and of that country’s current Shi’ite-dominated, Islamist government–which has been openly allied to some of the very militants now “cleansing” Iraq of everyone who is not a ‘proper’ Shi’ite Muslim.When recently asked by The Washington Post if the Bush Administration’s Iraq adventure was worth the ultimate price–20 Americans from the 1st Battalion have lost their lives in Baghdad–Sgt. Victor Alarcon said no.”I don’t think this place is worth another soldier’s life,” he said decisively.U.S. commanders at least admit that Shi’ite militias have worked hard to make former Sunni  neighborhoods their own. There apparently was an extra reason for Shi’ites to be interested in the neighborhood of Sadiyah: It sits along the principal road used by Shi’ite pilgrims traveling to the holy cities of Karbala and Najaf in Iraq’s south.The quick descent of Sadiyah mirrored a pattern now all-too-familiar in Baghdad. Shi’ite militias such as the Mahdi Army visited every home in the neighborhood, intimidating and often murdering Sunni families in cold blood.Mortar rounds fired from nearby Bayaa–a known Mahdi Army stronghold–regularly crashed down in Sadiyah.Battalion troops estimate that half of Sadiyah’s families fled the area as violence intensified earlier this year; only about 100,000 of the neighborhood’s original residents remain. As the former inhabitants either left or were murdered, Shi’ite militiamen and insurgents moved into the abandoned houses to store weapons and hold meetings.”It’s just a slow, somewhat government-supported sectarian cleansing,” Maj. Eric Timmerman, the 1st Battalion’s operations officer, told the Post.The battalion was stationed in Sadiyah to help the current Iraqi government create a national security force  which would be fair, law-abiding, and trustworthy–but U.S. soldiers soon learned that this goal was simply unattainable.Our soldiers watched as the violence in Sadiyah against Sunnis was at times openly encouraged by the Wolf Brigade, a primarily Shi’ite unit of the Iraqi National Police.American troops endured repeated convoy bombings, often within full view of Iraqi police checkpoints. The battalion has arrested 70 Iraqi police officers for collaboration with Shi’ite militants in such attacks, as well as for other crimes.Iraqi police officers erected checkpoints outside Sunni mosques in Sadiyah, only to prevent Sunnis from attending religious services. Explosives were rigged in three Sunni mosques –presumably by Shi’ite militias–and destroyed.”We were so committed to them as a partner we couldn’t see it for what it was. In retrospect, I’ve got to think [the action of Shi’ite militias and Iraqi police forces] was a coordinated effort,” Timmerman told the Post.”To this day, I don’t think we truly understand how infiltrated or complicit the national police are” with Islamist Shi’ite militias, he added.Like what you’re reading so far? Then why not order a full year (52 issues) of thee-newsletter for only $15? 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