Iraq. Now for Plan B.

The digital clock on my desk said 1202 hours 4 April 2004 as I sat down to a tasty sandwich. Sue Shea buzzed me.
"General Sanchez on the line. Urgent."

"All hell is breaking loose with Muqtada sir," he said "We're getting reports from Sadr City, Najaf .. Al Kut ....."

Page 318 / My Year in IRAQ Paul Bremer.

Having shut down Muqtada's newspaper al Hawza (page 313) which had published names of Iraqis working for the Coalition who should be killed , and publishing a Muqtada sermon from the previous Friday which called for arms against Israel and America and saying the 9/11 terrorist attack was a "blessing and a miracle from God" ... Bremer faced the murderous and bloody response.

Starting from Sadr City the battle spread. In days al-Sadr and his forces were in control of the cities of Najaf, Kufa, Kut, and Karbala. Muqtada was the new boy on the block, with little theological training, he was however a charismatic figure and outstanding orator - and now represents the voice and the strength of the Shia behind Prime Minister Maliki. For example

......the US forces arrested a member of Muqtada Sadr's army Sheikh Mazen al-Saedi who had been involved in death squad activity that killed hundreds of Sunnis. General Caldwell at his Press briefing on 19th October admitted (on questioning by Paul Schemm, AFP) that he had been released on the orders of Prime Minister Maliki - he did add that "he signed a conditional release promising to support the government of Iraq and disavow future acts of violence on his release".

Yeah like whatever.

After the British troops abandoned Amara overnight at the end of August the Mahdi army established their authority, and having started trouble this week, they have dictated a truce on their terms - sufficent to keep Coalition forces from interfering - a fight for which they have no stomach anyway.

This bloody skirmish in Amara, Maj. Gen. William Caldwell's (see pic) acceptance that US crackdown (Operation Together Forward ) on violence in Baghdad has failed, demonstrates the strategic failure and a massive strategic failure that Dickie Dannat and others have identified.

Richard Haass, President of the Council on Foreign Relations who was a Bush administration foreign policy official, talks of a "tipping point" both in Iraq and the US. "More of essentially the same is going to be a policy that very few people are going to be able to support," said Haass, adding his view that the administration's current Iraq strategy "has virtually no chance of succeeding." Even George Bush talks of the Tet offensive as the turning point in the war he managed to avoid.

So ...

The Coalition forces took Iraq, and had no plan about what to do ....

Mired in violence, unversally hated by the population throughout the country .... whatever plan they had and were working to...er...isn't working.

So... what we need is ..er .. a new strategy.

Virginia Sen. John Warner, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska have joined the Democrats in calling for a new Iraq strategy...

Any ideas on a post card please, George W Bush, Commander in Chief, White House, Washington DC. ZIP 20500