BAGHDAD -- Regular readers know I think we've been in a low- to medium-grade civil war for some time, with the Feb. 22 Askariya bombing a huge step toward open conflict. Well, read this by Nir Rosen, who used to write for TIME before he went on to bigger and better things. Nir's a smart guy. Here's an early, key point he makes:
...Sunnis were killing Shia civilians, and Shia, often under official cover, were retaliating. I asked Haidar if the rumors I’d heard were true -- that the Ministry of Interior had been infiltrated and dominated by the Badr Organization Militia, the military forces of the radical Shia Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution, or SCIRI. Yes, he said, and added that Ministry of Interior members affiliated with Badr were assassinating Sunnis throughout Iraq. Sunni officers were being removed and replaced by unknown Shias.
This jives with my own reporting on this, which will be published tomorrow on TIME.com.
By reason of your posts, it appears that a medium-grade civil war has been in the works for a while. From all I’ve ben reading, I suspect a full-on high-grade civil war is only hours away. Be careful, won’t you?
There seems to be this belief in the Administration that if they don’t call it a “civil war”, either the public will not be alarmed or it will simply go away. Here is my post that discusses this war of words.
I read an article that made “Operation Swarmer” sound like a police raid.
Is this something we can expect as being the looks of things to come in Iraq ?
No heated gun fights, just some arrests, a ton or two of TNT, some military and police uniforms confiscated, and a fake ID ring uncovered with some 300 ID’s ready to go. an article excerpt; … Further evidence of masking insurgency action under the guise of police forces is discovered in a separate raid in north-central Iraq; “After receiving information on a possible fake identification workstation, Soldiers from 2nd Battalion, 327th Infantry Regiment, conducted a cordon and search with members of the Iraqi Police. Once inside the target residence, the combined force discovered more than 300 false identification cards, including Iraqi Police IDs.” … Reads like a planned “Tet offensive” in the making had a minor setback. with forces swarming like locusts out of the sky. But who’s uniforms,ID’s and weapons plans were foiled?
Not suprising if the Sunni/Shia killing continues when people put on uniforms and play “cops and robbers” in plain sight from now until the Iraqi’s sit and form a real government.
That real govt will have their hands full and will constantly be looking over their shoulders at who is out of official uniform dress.
Hello, Chris. The new format is primo. Somehow, in the transition, I lost my subscription. All’s well now and I look forward to your TIME piece tomorrow. Best, Chuck
Thanks for the link to Mr. Rosen’s story. Here’s hoping it gets wide distribution.
Just a quick note to say thank you. It is unbelievable how much news is filtered and lost when it come to the United States. You would think that the Iraq War wasn’t as important as a V.P. shooting his buddy in the face. Anyway, I think the assessment that we are seeing a new form of Civil War is correct - in Baghdad Sunnis live with the Shia. There won’t be open battles like our civil war or the Spanish Civil War, just neighborhoods cleaning out neighborhoods, just 50-60 bodies showing up in the river each morning. It’s not high grade or low grade, it’s a Civil War like in Northern Ireland, where two warring communities live in approxiamtely the same area.