Sadr, Iraq to dissolve militia if US withdraws from Iraq

[Bangkoktraveler]

Radical Shiite leader Moqtada Sadr has ordered his Mahdi Army militia to lay down its arms if a security pact between Baghdad and Washington provides for a withdrawal from Iraq, his spokesman said on Friday.

 

"We want to see whether the provisions of the agreement are serious. We will be satisfied if the agreement contains the withdrawal of US forces," Salah al-Obeidi, chief spokesman for the Sadr movement, told AFP.

 

"If so, we will complete the reorganisation of the Mahdi Army which aims to transform it into a social organisation," he said in the Shiite stronghold of Najaf, about 160 kilometres (99 miles) south of Baghdad.

 

But he also warned that if the withdrawal terms were not written into the agreement then Sadr's forces would remain armed.

 

"We will be forced to await the decision of withdrawal of American forces."

 

Baghdad and Washington are still negotiating an agreement that would govern US troop levels and allow them to operate after a UN mandate expires at the end of the year.

 

US President George W. Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki agreed in principle last November to sign a Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) in Iraq by the end of July, but controversy has delayed the arrangement.

 

The proposed pact has drawn sharp criticism from Iraq's various political factions, especially from the deeply anti-American Sadr.

 

He announced in June that he would replace the 60,000-strong Mahdi Army with a leaner and meaner fighting force to target the US-led occupation.

 

Other members of the militia will refocus on cultural and religious issues in the poverty-stricken slums of central and southern Iraq, Sadr's main power base.

 

A ceasefire drawn up a year ago has been a key factor in violence levels dropping to four-year lows.

 

The reform of the Mahdi Army could eventually lead to the emergence of a movement modelled on the Palestinian movement Hamas or Lebanese Hezbollah, experts have said.

 

Maliki said last month that he was negotiating for the deal to set a timetable for a withdrawal of foreign forces.

 

Iraqi politicians have bristled at the idea of a continuing defence pact with the United States, but have also said they are on track to concluding an arrangement.

 

They have also expressed reservations about how many bases Washington should retain, what powers the US military should continue to hold to detain Iraqi civilians, and what immunity US troops should have from Iraqi law.

 

The White House has so far refused to be locked into a fixed date for withdrawing US combat troops, but has suggested a series of target dates for giving Iraqis control over security in different parts of the war-torn country.

 

With about 142,500 American troops still Iraq, the issue is politically sensitive in Washington as the November US presidential election draws nearer.

 

Meanwhile, in an indication that violence remains a problem in the north of Iraq, 18 people were killed and more than 50 wounded in a car bomb attack on market in the northern town of Tal Afar, a hospital official said.

 

A US army spokesperson, Sam Smith, put the death toll at 20.

 

Tal Afar is located just west of the flashpoint city of Mosul, capital of Niniveh province and seen by the US army as the last urban holdhout of the terror network Al-Qaeda in Iraq.

 

The United States a few years back hailed Tal Afar as a model of improved security but the town has since become one of the most dangerous in the country. In March 2007, 152 people were killed in a bomb attack in Tal Afar.

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[Faustian]

That's jolly good of him.

[carlton68]

Yes,

 

and Hitler would have turned the SS into a mens choir if only the evil allies let him.

 

Good PR for Sadr

 

 

 

 

[Neo]

The US and Iraq puppets are afraid of Sadr. They put rules into the constitution to keep people out they don't like. One rule is no bath party members. To get rid of Sadr, there is another rule that states that no one with a militia can run for office. Given this, Sadr's proposal makes perfect sense. Get the US out, release his own militia, and then get himself elected to run the show. Look at who is gaining power in the mideast from iran to palestine--everyone the US wants to get rid of and this seems due to US foreign policy more than anything. Major backfire much like feeding the Castro dynasty rather than starving him out like they thought it would.

 

[TheCorinthian]

How many Nazis ran for office in Germany in 1945-55?

 

How many did you want to?

[kamui]

How many Nazis ran for office in Germany in 1945-55?

 

How many did you want to?

 

There were hundreds of thousands, disguised as democrats. Actually the post war secret service, the diplomatic corps, the new army included many Nazis. Even many judges were ex-Nazis. Also some professions and institutions like medical doctors or universities kept on working like almost nothing happened.

 

Luckily *most* of the leading Nazi were prosecuted, but all the thousands of minions mostly did not suffer at all. They just became Democrats within 24 hours.

 

The rebuilding of Germany could not have happened if really all former Nazis would have been thrown out of the German bureaucracy. Actually that was one of the major mistakes of the US policy in Iraq: that they forces all Bath party member out of the bureaucracy and the army. The result was predictable: the bureaucracy and the army collapsed and many of now jobless bureaucrats and soldiers even became militants and terrorists.