...The McCain Bush "Surge": A Reality Check

The Basra confrontation also served as a test for the U.S.-trained

Iraqi security forces, which are majority Shiite and include many

al-Sadr supporters.

In the campaign's first days, Iraqi forces made little headway against

Mahdi fighters, who unleashed rocket-propelled grenades and machine

gun fire every time government troops tried to enter their

neighborhoods.

The headquarters of the Iraqi army's Basra operation has come under

fire regularly since the fighting began.

Iraqi commanders have had to turn to the British and American

warplanes to take out militia fighters blocking their advance.

At least a dozen police, including some elite commandos, defected to

the Sadrists in Baghdad.

AP Television News video showed Mahdi fighters in Basra unloading

weapons from an Iraqi army vehicle.

The vehicle didn't have a scratch on it, suggesting it was either

abandoned by the Iraqi soldiers or delivered to the Mahdi Army.

From The Associated Press, 3/30/08:

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/wire/sns-ap-iraq-reality-check,0,6402321.story

ANALYSIS: Iraq Fighting a Reality Check

By ROBERT H. REID | Associated Press Writer

BAGHDAD -

The Iraqi capital locked down by curfew.

U.S. diplomats holed up their workplaces, fearing rocket attacks.

Nearly every major southern city racked by turmoil.

Hundreds killed in less than a week.

A declaration Sunday by Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr to pull his

Mahdi Army fighters off the streets may help bring an end to the wave

of violence that swept Baghdad and Shiite areas after the government

launched a crackdown against militias in Basra.

That will ease the violence which has claimed more than 300 lives.

But it won't bring an end to the power struggle between Shiite parties

that triggered the confrontation.

Nor will it ensure government control of Basra, Iraq's second-largest

city and headquarters of the vital oil industry.

And it could leave Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki politically weakened

because he put his prestige on the line with promises to crush Basra's

"criminal gangs," some of which he said were "worse than al-Qaida."

The crackdown has already dragged the United States into a bloody

inner-Shiite fight at a time when the U.S. administration would prefer

to talk about success against Sunni extremists and to argue that Iraq

is finally on the road to stability.

Instead, the bloody confrontation serves as a reality check about the

situation in Iraq -- even as the top U.S. officials in Baghdad prepare

to brief a skeptical Congress for two days starting April 8 about

prospects for bringing home the troops and leaving a relatively stable

country behind.

President Bush called the Basra crisis "a defining moment" because the

Maliki-led Iraqi government was finally taking on the Shiite militias.

But the crisis speaks volumes about the reality of Iraqi society and

raises new questions about the effectiveness of the country's

leadership as America debates whether continuing the mission here is

worth the sacrifice.

Iraqi and American officials portrayed the crackdown as a move to

crush outlaw militias -- some with close ties to Iran -- that have

effectively ruled the streets of the country's second-largest city for

nearly three years.

Many of those armed groups are without question deep into oil

smuggling, extortion, murder and robbery.

But the picture is more complex.

It involves deep-seated rivalries within the majority Shiite

community.

Numerous other militias and armed groups operate in Basra and

elsewhere in the south -- some with close ties to political parties in

the national and provincial governments.

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That's yer wonderfully successful McCain/Bush "surge".

Harry