Word: sadr
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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...
...Central 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...
...remain untamed. In recent months U.S. forces have curtailed patrols and pulled back to bases outside Iraq's inner cities, leaving most of southern Iraq in the hands of its coalition partners. It has also turned over the policing of urban areas like Baghdad's seething Shi'ite slum Sadr City to overmatched Iraqi security forces, which is why nowhere near enough U.S. forces were available to respond when al-Sadr's militia made its move...
...troops in Iraq from bugging out. Even if most stay, U.S. military officials complain that the other foreign troops in Iraq showed last week that they don't have permission from their governments to engage in heavy fighting and lack the firepower to combat even minor foes like al-Sadr's militia. Nor are the Iraqi security forces recruited and trained by the U.S. ready for prime time...
...person U.S. embassy. Officials believe delaying the transition would only further enrage Iraqis, including, critically, the country's most revered Shi'ite leader, Grand Ayatullah Ali Husaini Sistani, whose support the U.S. needs more than ever as it tries to rein in the upstart al-Sadr. "June 30 is a good date," says Rend al-Rahim Francke, Iraq's diplomatic representative to the U.S. "It is long overdue...