As a week of mounting U.S. casualties in Iraq drew to a close, the Bush administration pledged Friday to take the fight to Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and other Iraqi resisters.
“We’re worried, but I am not panicked about it,” said Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage of the upsurge in resistance to U.S. occupation.
“They’ve chosen to fight,” Armitage told the semiofficial Egyptian newspaper Al-Ahram. “We’ll fight. And they will see that we understand strength as well.”
The cleric’s militia has been in battle with U.S. and other coalition forces this week. Armitage dismissed the al-Sadr offensive as inevitable.
“Sooner or later this was going to happen,” he said. “Sooner or later we were going to have to disarm the militias. There is no question.”
In the fight, Armitage said, Iraqi civilians are being killed “and our soldiers are as devastated as anybody.”
“We do not want to use force indiscriminately,” he said. “We bleed when this happens.”
So, the answer to the uprising in Iraq is….TAKE THEIR GUNS AWAY! How brilliant, how…practical.
The idea of actually addressing the Iraqi’s grievances doesn’t cross their minds. Of course, addressing their grievances would likely involve leaving Iraq and these power-tripping wannabee emperors don’t have that on their agendas at all. No, their still in flight-suit cowboy mode. They’re going to take the fight to Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and other Iraqi resisters. Like they did with Fallujah. We all know what a rip-roaring success that’s been.
As Steve Gilliard wrote today:
The sad fact about Iraq is that no one gets the scale of the tragedy. Not only are the theocrats going to win, but the scale of killing is vast. Over 40 Americans and 300 Iraqis have been killed in fighting.
There is this arrogant idea that all the US has to do is kill enough people and the resistance will end. Dan Barlett, the White House spokesman making the rounds of the morning shows, said “we’re fighting evil”.
When I heard that, my mouth fell open. Hasn’t anyone in the White House noticed most Iraqis are on the fence, and many more have decided to oppose the occupation. They are not supporting us. They are not taking our side, except when we pay them. There isn’t one pro-american group native to Iraq. No one cares about Chalabi’s henchmen.
I heard a Lt. Col say “we’re winning every firefight.” So? Why are you in firefights? Why are people killing your Marines? Doesn’t that speak of a massive policy failure. Now, I know he has to win a battle, but the idea that we’re fighting in Iraq is insane. We were supposed to liberate these people, not have them turn on us.
[…]This fight, which I think was pushed by Chalabi and his neocon buddies, to get the Sunnis under heel and Sadr out of the way, is a complete disaster. US troops, from now, until the day we leave Iraq, will face gunfire in Sadr City. Our supply lines will face random attacks. The Sunni tribal towns will never permit Coalition troops in their borders without a fight. Every Iraqi we kill is one who has to be avenged.
The US started a fight with people who don’t quit. CENTCOM says “we control Iraq”, well no, you don’t and can’t. So what if you took back Kut, the Al Mahdi boys just went home. They will be back. Maybe at night, when a convoy comes by. Maybe on the rail lines. They may back down from gun battles in the street, but we’ve just started the Shia insurgency. Shias have always opposed Americans, some joined the insurgency from day one. Now, the masses are deciding it’s time to kick the Americans out.
Now, when the masses decide you’re out, you’re toast – got it, neoboobs? Yeah, I know…they don’t and will never get it. The question is simply how many people are going to die before they’re forced out – whining, spinning, lying and killing as they go.
Oh, and by the way, has anyone heard anything out of that big-mouth blowhard swindler, Ahmed “Hero in Error” Chalabi lately? What could possibly shut him up, beside the need to lay low until the blood from his last caper dries?