Iraqi Offensive: "Progress" or Head-in-the-Sand Disaster?

By Andrew Cochran

Today, President Bush promoted the offensive underway by Iraqi government forces against Shiite militias as showing "the progress the Iraqi security forces have made during the surge." Let's look at that "progress" today:

"With the threat of a civil war looming in the south, Nouri al-Maliki’s police chief in Basra narrowly escaped assassination in the crucial port city, while in Baghdad, the spokesman for the Iraqi side of the US military surge was kidnapped by gunmen and his house burnt to the ground. Saboteurs also blew up one of Iraq's two main oil pipelines from Basra, cutting at least a third of the exports from the city which provides 80 per cent of government revenue, a clear sign that the militias — who siphon significant sums off the oil smuggling trade — would not stop at mere insurrection. In Baghdad, thick black smoke hung over the city centre tonight and gunfire echoed across the city. The most secure area of the capital, Karrada, was placed under curfew amid fears the Mahdi Army of Hojetoleslam Moqtada al-Sadr could launch an assault on the residence of Abdelaziz al-Hakim, the head of a powerful rival Shia governing party... In Baghdad, the Mahdi Army took over neighbourhood after neighbourhood, some amid heavy fighting, others without firing a shot. In New Baghdad, militiamen simply ordered the police to leave their checkpoints: the officers complied en masse and the guerrillas stepped out of the shadows to take over their checkpoints."

A U.S. embassy employee died when one of the unreliable Shiite rockets accidentally hit its target, and the State Department has now ordered our embassy employees to take cover in our own embassy.

This is a budding disaster for the Maliki government, and it doesn't merit plaudits from anybody connected with the U.S. We vividly recall the spectacle of seeing the President compliment FEMA for its "fine job" in New Orleans right after Hurricane Katrina, only to be confronted by live reporting on the stranded and dying residents stuck in the Convention Center. The Pentagon and the White House need to speak plainly and candidly about the strategic defeat being suffered thus far by the Maliki government and the implications for our Iraq policy. If Iraqi forces turn it around - and they could - there will be plenty of time for backslaps and handshakes.

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