It's not al-Qaeda, it's not Iran

It's the Iraqi Shiites protecting themselves from us:

In his press briefing on August 5, Odierno, the second-ranking US commander in Iraq, blamed the rise in the proportion of US casualties attributable to Shi'ite militias to Iran "surging their support to these groups based on the September report" - a reference to the much-anticipated report by General David Petraeus on the United States' own "surge" strategy.

Odierno claimed intelligence reports supported his contention of an Iranian effort to influence public perceptions of the "surge" strategy. "They're sending more money in, they're training more individuals and they're sending more weapons in."

He repeated the charge in an interview with Michael R Gordon of the New York Times published on its front page on August 8 under the headline "US says Iran-supplied bomb is killing more troops in Iraq". In that interview, he declared of Iran, "I think they want to influence the decision potentially coming up in September."

What Odierno framed in terms of an Iranian policy, however, can be explained much more simply by the fact that the US military mounted more operations on Muqtada's Mahdi Army during the spring and summer.

The US command has not provided any statistics on the targets of its operations in recent months, but news reports on those operations reveal a pattern of rising US attacks on Mahdi Army personnel since March.

Between April 26 and June 30, the US command in Baghdad announced dozens of military operations in Baghdad - the vast majority in Sadr City - solely for the purpose of capturing or killing Shi'ites belonging to what were called "secret cells", a term used to describe Mahdi Army units alleged to be supported by Iran.

In July, the Mahdi Army resisted these raids in many cases. On July 9, for example, US troops cordoned off an area in Sadr City and began searching for members of what the US command called a "criminal militia" accused of planting roadside bombs. According to the official military press release, the US troops were "engaged by rocket-propelled grenades and small-arms fire from numerous locations".

In short, the rise in deaths of US troops in Baghdad last month reflected the increased pace of US operations against the Mahdi Army and the Mahdi Army's military response.

Odierno conceded as much in the same press conference: "Because of the effect we've had on al-Qaeda in Iraq and the success against them and the Sunni insurgency," he said, "we are focusing very much more on the special groups of the Jaish al-Mahdi [Mahdi Army] here in Baghdad."

The major briefing by the US command on alleged Iranian support for Iraqi Shi'ite militias in recent weeks appears to contradict Odierno's claim that intelligence showed increased Iranian assistance to those militias. Brigadier-General Kevin Bergner told reporters on August 2 - after a "surge" in Iranian assistance had allegedly taken place - that the rate of training of militia groups in Iran had remained stable for a long time.

The transcript of the briefing also shows that Bergner did not claim any recent increase in financial assistance to the Mahdi Army.

How many Americans still think Iraq had anything to do with 9/11? How many of them think all Iraqis and Iranians have goats and camels and live in the desert? How many of them are unaware Iraq had a thriving middle class? That Iran has a highly educated population? How many Americans think all Muslims are of the same religion? How many of them think that attacking Iran is a good idea?

How many Americans can point to Iraq and Iran on the map?

The Iraqi government

Is actually the Shiite group that supports al-Maliki that is fighting the Sunni groups that resent the Shiite hold on power because of their use of death squads... So what do we do while al-Maliki goes to Tehran to open diplomatic ties?

We attack al-Sadr's section of Baghdad, a Shiite stronghold.

Juan Cole of Informed Consent:

The US military took advantage of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's absence from the country to settle some scores with the Mahdi Army in Sadr City (East Baghad), attacking units there and mounting air strikes on them, killing 32 and wounding about a dozen. Local observers claimed that the attacks killed 9 innocent civilians, but the US military said the casualties were militiamen. When al-Maliki is in Baghdad, he tends to run interference for the Sadr Movement, which elected him to office, and to attempt to convince the US military to put off attacking these Shiite forces until after the Sunni Arab guerrillas are dealt with decisively.

Iraqslogger shows the reaction in Sadr City. It isn't pretty.

Not only did the US military attack these Shiite forces unilaterally, but its spokesmen attempted to link the Mahdi Army cell attacked to the importation of explosively formed projectiles from Iran.

It cannot be an accident that both the attack and the attempt to implicate Iran (with no evidence for the allegations against Tehran provided) came while al-Maliki was in Tehran for high level consultations with the Iranian government.

Maybe somebody's score card was upside down or something....

Where do you go for food when the bullets start flying?

“This is our seventh day inside our house and the kids are starving,” Jalal Jumaa Hadi, a 33-year-old taxi driver and father of two boys, told IRIN in a phone interview from his house “I can't go out to work and we can’t venture out to buy anything for the kids. We’re just baking bread and feeding our kids.”

A humanitarian crisis is occuring in Dinwaniyah, Iraq:

BAGHDAD, 11 April 2007 (IRIN) - A week of fierce clashes between US-Iraqi forces and Shia militiamen in Diwaniyah has brought the city to the brink of a “real humanitarian catastrophe”, health workers said on Wednesday. Aid agencies and doctors are demanding they be given access to a desperate population who have become prisoners in their own homes.

“We can’t send our ambulances in to collect dead bodies or the wounded from the streets. And we are running out of essential medical items such as pain killer tablets, IV fluids, anaesthesia, stitches, antiseptics and things like bandages and cotton," said Dr Kamal Hussein of the city’s general hospital.

“In addition, we don't have enough fuel to operate our generators so we only have four to six hours of electricity a day,” Hussein added. “The government and US forces must allow medicines into this city otherwise there will be a real humanitarian catastrophe.”

The predominantly Shia city of Diwaniyah, about 130km south of the capital, Baghdad, has a population of between 400,000 and half a million.

The focus of the US offensive in Diwaniyah is The Mahdi Army, run by radical Shia leader Muqtada al-Sadr, who had ordered Baghdad militiamen to lay down their weapons during a month-long US-led security crackdown in the capital.

Many of the Diwaniyah fighters are thought to have come from Baghdad and are using the US preoccupation with the capital to cement their hold on parts of the southern city.