‘Half of them are JAM’

February 2, 2007

I know there’s been a lot of Iraq-related news today, particularly in light of the NIE release, but I didn’t want to let this story get lost in the shuffle. It might be the day’s most important piece about the war.

The U.S. military drive to train and equip Iraq’s security forces has unwittingly strengthened anti-American Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army militia, which has been battling to take over much of the capital city as American forces are trying to secure it.

U.S. Army commanders and enlisted men who are patrolling east Baghdad, which is home to more than half the city’s population and the front line of al-Sadr’s campaign to drive rival Sunni Muslims from their homes and neighborhoods, said al-Sadr’s militias had heavily infiltrated the Iraqi police and army units that they’ve trained and armed.

“Half of them are JAM. They’ll wave at us during the day and shoot at us during the night,” said 1st Lt. Dan Quinn, a platoon leader in the Army’s 1st Infantry Division, using the initials of the militia’s Arabic name, Jaish al Mahdi. “People (in America) think it’s bad, but that we control the city. That’s not the way it is. They control it, and they let us drive around. It’s hostile territory.”

I realize I frequently use the word “nightmare” to describe the current conditions of the war, but it strikes me as the only appropriate word after reading a story like this.

As Garance Franke-Ruta put it, “Some would argue that America has a moral obligation to stay in order to prevent this brutal outcome. But who is the U.S. supposed to ally itself with in such a situation? The anti-U.S. Sunni insurgents? Al-Qaeda? No — we’re fighting them. And thereby helping the Madhi Army, and strenghtening Iran — whom we are also sort of fighting…. We should stay to strengthen the hand of the slaughterers?

The crux of Bush’s new escalation strategy is that additional U.S. troops will a) clear and stabilize violent areas; and b) turn those areas over to U.S.-trained Iraqi security units. The problem, of course, is c) we’re indirectly strengthening al-Sadr and his militia because those security units are filled with his men.

Al-Sadr’s success in infiltrating Iraqi security forces says much about the continued inability of American commanders in Iraq to counter the classic insurgent tactic of using popular support to trump superior military firepower. Lacking attack helicopters and other sophisticated weapons, al-Sadr’s men have expanded their empire with borrowed trucks and free lunches for militiamen.

After U.S. units pounded al-Sadr’s men in August 2004, the cleric apparently decided that instead of facing American tanks, he’d use the Americans’ plans to build Iraqi security forces to rebuild his own militia.

So while Iraq’s other main Shiite militia, the Badr Brigade, concentrated in 2005 on packing Iraqi intelligence bureaus with high-level officers who could coordinate sectarian assassinations, al-Sadr went after the rank and file.

His recruits began flooding into the Iraqi army and police, receiving training, uniforms and equipment either directly from the U.S. military or from the American-backed Iraqi Defense Ministry.

The infiltration by al-Sadr’s men, coupled with his strength in Iraq’s parliament after U.S.-backed elections, gave him leeway to operate death squads throughout the capital, according to more than a week of interviews with American soldiers patrolling Baghdad. Some U.S.-trained units carried out sectarian killings themselves, while others, manning checkpoints, allowed militiamen to pass.

Surge or no surge, we need to train Iraqi security forces, while undermining the strength of al-Sadr’s militia. But by doing the first, we’re doing the opposite of the second.

Post Script: Kevin Drum raises a point that seems to have been largely overlooked about this.

You know, everything I’ve heard suggests that Gen. David Petraeus is a terrific officer in all respects. And yet, there’s something that’s been niggling in the back of my mind for a while: namely that in August 2004, when al-Sadr was hatching this plan, Petraeus was the guy in charge of creating and overseeing the training program for the Iraqi army and police. In other words, he was the guy who was being suckered. Now he’s in charge of the whole operation. Is anybody else bothered by this?

Good question.

Aside from the stupidity of us training and arming the Mahdi army, the whole idea of us being involved in keeping the bad guys down is disturbing, because we can’t tell who we’re bombing and the guys telling us who to bomb keep turning out to be a bunch of thugs. The same exact thing happened in Afghanistan, for the same reason; we don’t have anyone who can tell who the players are or speak the lingo.

We’re providing aerial firepower for a bunch of people who like to murder other people. You could even say we’re helping the terrorists.

We should just go.

  • We’re also providing aerial firepower for these thugs, and because we don’t have the language experts, we can’t tell who we’re bombing.

    We should just go.

  • The Kurds did the same thing.

    Nice to know our leaders had such a firm grasp of these possibilities before we invaded … you know, like all us dirty fucking hippies did.

    I know, I know … we should focus on “winning.” The problem is that a 50,000-troop Hail Mary at the buzzer isn’t much of a gameplan.

  • And since rich Saudis are funding the shoulder-fired missiles that are bringing down our helicopters, and since the Mahdi army would probably carry out coordinated attacks on our ground troops if we did, we should attack Iran.

  • Obviously, no one, including Bush, thinks the Surge will work. It’s a political move to punt the ball, and perhaps justify bringing in troops to secure the border after an airstrike on Iran. Or, it could all be part of the “80 percent solution” or give civil war a chance movement. Arming the militia, in his mind, might not be a bad thing, since it will ease some of those long harbored tensions.

    Goes back to those possible Death Squads Joe Klien is so fond of.

    An ethnically pure Iraq is a peaceful Iraq. And we want the kudos for it.

  • “His recruits began flooding into the Iraqi army and police, receiving training, uniforms and equipment either directly from the U.S. military or from the American-backed Iraqi Defense Ministry.”

    Your tax dollars, hard at work.

    How many dead American soldiers have been killed by bullets that were paid for out your paycheck and trained by US soldiers whose salary is deducted out of your pay? In this civil war, it’s every person for themselves, only we are suckered into helping the opposition kill our own troops. The longer we stay there, the more opponents we will train who when they stand up will shoot our soldiers down. We’re now looking at enough firepower to bring down our airships, which are the preferred alternative mode of transport to avoid getting nailed by land-based IEDs. If this is not a call for getting the hell out of there, I don’t know what is.

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