Word: militiaization
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...officials do not believe the uprising will turn into a nationwide insurrection. They say the Shi'ite militia numbers only a few thousand and describe leaders, including al-Sadr, as two-bit thugs. All that may be true. But the inability of the U.S., its coalition partners and their Iraqi allies to prevent the outbreak of mayhem showed that, a full year into the occupation, Iraq is nowhere close to being under control. After Iraqi police forces were overrun by al-Sadr's men, the Iraqi Interior Minister resigned at the behest of U.S. administrator L. Paul Bremer...
...Command (Centcom) responsible for Iraq, told Bush in a video-conference call last Friday that his troops were not seeing Sunni-Shi'ite cooperation in any structural or systematic way. In the south, U.S. forces reclaimed the city of Kut from the short-lived control of al-Sadr's militia. But Pentagon officials warned that the conflict against al-Sadr and his supporters might drag on: the Shi'ite festival of Arbaeen on Sunday attracted hundreds of thousands of worshippers to Karbala and Najaf, where al-Sadr was holed up. U.S. troops would tread carefully there until at least early...
...keep effective control of major cities such as Falluja and Ramadi. No longer are occupational troops only forced to quell the small-time operations of Sunni extremists, whose attacks—though demoralizing—were less destructive and more infrequent before the recent assistance of Shiite militia. Rather, the current alliance has resulted in increasing violence and a loss of control in important cities, while continuing to refute President Bush’s rash claims that major combat is over. The situation on the ground confirms fears that a large, expensive, long-term military presence and effective security force...
...Sadrists adopted against the advice of its allies in the IGC may paint the U.S. into a tactical corner. It will be hard-pushed, for example, to ease the siege of Fallujah while leaving the insurgent structure there intact, or to back off its vow to "destroy" Sadr's militia. And yet in both cases sticking to those goals are alienating growing sections of Iraqi society. It's not that they necessarily support Sadr or the insurgency, but they're increasingly outraged by the U.S. response and the mounting toll of Iraqi casualties...
...officials have vowed to eliminate the Sadrist militia, but the movement may prove resilient. Indeed, the underground organization it maintained inside Iraq in the teeth of Baathist terror - Moqtada's uncle, a revered Grand Ayatollah who was once a rival to Sistani, as well as his father and brothers were assassinated by agents of Saddam's regime - gave it a head start on all the political organizations returning from exile after the regime fell. Within weeks of Baghdad's capture, the Sadrist movement had emerged as the most organized political force in Iraq. That legacy will make the movement difficult...