Word: ites
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Iraq After Saddam Hussein's ouster, many local leaders sought to erase part of his legacy. One prominent example: the sprawling, poor Baghdad neighborhood of Saddam City became Sadr City. The name honors Shi'ite leader Muqtada al-Sadr's father, a revered cleric who was killed during Saddam's regime...
...blunt: the U.S. military campaign to stabilize Iraq has failed. We have lost control of Anbar province, the Sunni stronghold. We are losing the battle for Baghdad. Muqtada al-Sadr's militia has taken control in several predominantly Shi'ite provinces. The government in Baghdad is near collapse. Sadr's support is the only real power base that Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has left. If the political equation isn't changed soon, it is likely that Sadr will emerge as the de jure leader of Shi'ite Iraq. This will certainly lead to a full-scale civil...
...there any viable options to anarchy? More troops? The U.S. military is overstretched and exhausted. Partition? The atmosphere in Baghdad is too chaotic and bitter for a new power-sharing deal among the Sunnis, Shi'ites and Kurds. The last best chance to restore order and hold Iraq together may be a dramatic ecumenical expansion of the Iraqi security forces under new leadership. We need to rectify the most serious error we made in Iraq after our initial military success and restore elements of the Baath Party, especially its former Shi'ite military leaders, to positions of power. Each...
...capture. We are negotiating in Jordan with Baathist representatives of the Sunni insurgency; we're trying to split them off from the al-Qaeda-in-Mesopotamia terrorists, and we may succeed if a re-Baathification program is put in place. It is less well known that Sadr's Shi'ite militia, the Mahdi Army, also has a strong Baathist component. U.S. military intelligence estimates that upwards of 30% of Sadr's militia leaders are former members of Saddam's armed forces. There is communication, and occasionally collaboration, between these Sunni and Shi'ite Baathists. In the spring of 2004, elements...
...long shot, Mr. President. There are many obstacles. The most immediate is Muqtada al-Sadr, who must be removed from the equation. We cannot be the agency of his removal, of course, but Sadr has many enemies, including rivals within his own organization. The other Shi'ite parties will also be obstacles--and, of course, the Grand Ayatullah Ali Husaini Sistani will need to be assuaged--but the strength of these groups has diminished as Sadr's power has increased in the past year, and it is possible they can be brought into the tent. The threat...