Recently, Nouri al-Maliki ordered an end to the efforts of US forces in Iraq to locate and recover a missing serviceman, and we complied. Does our acquiescence to this command illustrate that we no longer have control of the operations of US forces in Iraq?
Does this leave our troops and our mission vulnerable to competing political factions in what appears to be a civil war?
Does this compromise the safety of US forces and the security of America?
Is this at odds with the typical disdain that Republicans express at placing US forces under other commands during UN missions?
Who can be sure with the current people in charge? They aren’t noted for passing out straight stories. Rumsfeld claimed not to know anything about it when he was asked. I suppose the Iraqi prime minister asked our top command to remove the roadblocks and the request was granted. Such would probably not be the case if such a move actually endangered our entire military force, but who can be sure of that?
According to what I heard on TV, Sadr City is a section of Baghdad with a population of about 2.5 million and you couldn’t move in or out without a vehicle search. The logistics of such a thing were really impossible and getting food and other supplies in or out in the amounts necessary to support that many people was practically impossible.
The Iraqis apparently considered it too much of a threat to the welfare of the people in Sadr City to allow such a thing to continue for the purpose of finding just one individual. Hard as it is, I can see their point. We don’t hesitate to accept collateral damage, i.e. killing civilians, in the attempt to kill insurgents by aerial attack. Why should they accept suffering of their people for the sake of one US soldier?
Two distinct stench. First if our soldiers sent out on (presumably) dangerous duty to help rescue on of their own, and then told to stand down without success because the people they are (presumably) there to help said so. They gotta wonder why this wasn’t cleared in advance and if it was, who’s jerking their collective chain.
Second, how to convince the Sunni insurgents that this isn’t proof that the US is taking the Shia side in all of this.
Upside? Shows who’s in charge. Muktada al Sadr, I think his name is. Well, at least we know. Good thing nobody told Rummy anything.
I hadn’t heard this. I heard that Maliki asked the U.S. to lift the security cordon around Sadr City, and we complied. Maliki has no power to order the U.S. military to do anything – he can only ask. Whether to obey or not is a political decision. In this case, apparently, the U.S. felt like it couldn’t afford to undermine Maliki by telling him to go pound sand.
I also read that the Iraqi military is under the direct command of the U.S. military, which causes some discontent.
A nation can use its military in a number of ways. For instance, it can defend its own country, or it can attack another country whose government it doesn’t recognize as legitimate. In each of these situations, an American army would be unambiguously under American control.
But in a third situation - using our army to defend an ally on its soil - we might well have to abide by limits set by that ally.
This is - in theory, anyway - the situation we are in in Iraq. We recognize the government of Iraq as the duly constituted, legitimate, sovereign government of Iraq. That means that, absent formal agreements to the contrary, our military must work within whatever restrictions that government decides to impose on it.
All this BS about “who’s controlling the US military?” is just that - BS. We’re in full control of our own military in Iraq, within whatever sphere of action the government of Iraq allows it. Quite simple, really.
I don’t see it as a reversal of previous policy. Our fearless leaders made a show of turning over sovereignty to the elected Iraqi government. They also say, at every opportunity, that we’ll back away when the Iraqis are ready to protect themselves.
When al-Maliki said, “Back off, guys. We’ll handle this,” he was asserting his authority. Just like our government hoped, he declared that Iraqis could defend that little piece of Iraq themselves. Our troops are not under Iraqi command, but our General’s have stated many times that when the Iraqis told us to leave, we’d leave.
elucidator, both sides are suspicious of the US, and there’s not much we can do to gain their trust. We’re the villians in this movie, no matter how decent our alleged motives are. We barged in, overthrew the dictator, and refused to trust anybody. We brought in highly paid Americans to drive trucks and try to run their raggedy-ass powerplants as well as the Iraqis already knew how to do. We ignored the dozen cement plants that were there before the war, and we shipped in American cement at a big profit margin. :smack:
Hey, these folks may run around in nightshirts and pray with their heads on the floor to “the wrong god,” but they are not stupid. News is a worldwide, instant thing now, and they know about the dissent over here. They know about the incompetence and billion dollar fraud. A few of them may be reading this thread right now.
And in spite of this SNAFU I think the election will be real close. Our voters just can’t seem to think that “my guy” is a complete idiot even though they are disgusted with Congress.
And so we are likely to have another congress that will give GW whatever he wants. After all, the Democrats have no plan. And GW does?
You said that in another thread too, but as I pointed out, the Pubbie incumbents aren’t doing so well even on named ballots, which means that plenty of people are apparently ready to throw “my guy” out on his ear.
Yes we will. However, the polls are about registered voters. The election is about who actually gets out and votes.
If one goes strictly by results of national policy this election should be a Democratic blowout, but it seems to be reasonably close even among registered voters.
I well remember our President by Poll, Thomas E. Dewey.
I understand that there is a need to respect Iraqi authority, since our interests rely heavily on the establishment of a respectable Iraqi government. I also understand that “leave no man behind” is largely a platitude. There just seems to have been a series of events that suggest that the US forces in Iraq are able to exert less and less control over … whatever it is that they are doing there. Several weeks ago we were ordered to release a suspected leader of one of the factions of “insurgents” or militia or civil warriors or what have you.
Not only does it seem to me that the vulnerability of the troops there increases as their ability to carry out their mission independently decreases, but it seems more and more likely that they will be responding to directives from what may be seen as one side in a civil war.
Finally, Bush will have us stay there until the mission is done even if Barney is the last one to support him. If we are responding to the directives of some other authority, it becomes less and less clear whose mission it is that we are sticking out.
