Frank,
So far I haven't seen any real reporting which even tenuously supports the idea that there is a Shiite uprising. This isn't surprising. All surveys of Iraq done since the invasion suggest that while many Iraqis aren't happy with Coaltion presence they are even less happy with the prospect of a return to the old ways.
I don't doubt that the above is true as far as it goes, but I think it is more complicated than that. It seems to me that the situation in Iraq grows more opposed to the US all the time. If this weren't true, why would the following have happened over the past few days:
Ghazi Ajil al-Yawer, a Sunni Muslim member of the Iraqi Governing Council (IGC), said he was ready to resign if the US did not seek a peaceful solution to the crisis in Falluja....
Fellow IGC member Adnan Pachachi said the Falluja offensive was "illegal and totally unacceptable" whilst Kurdish IGC member Mahmoud Uthman described US policy as counter-productive.
The Iraqi interim Human Rights Minister, Abdel Basit Turki, and a member of the Iraqi Governing Council's rotating presidency, Iyad Allawi, both resigned on Friday without giving a reason for their decision.
The above comments are from the article printed below. You can read the same or similar things in other reports. The main reason the resistance is not even more fierce than it is right now is because (a) everyone knows that we have overwhelming military power, and can take out the whole country if we choose and (b) there is no consensus on who should take over. They don't trust or like us, and they don't trust or like each other. But this was clear even before the war, and was one important reason for my opposition to beginning it in the first place. I don't see how one can untangle this knot.
Iraqi allies warn US over Falluja
Reports from Falluja say food and medical supplies are low
Members of Iraq's US-appointed governing council have condemned the US military operation in Falluja after four days of bitter fighting.
One member described the operation as "genocide" after doctors in the Sunni Muslim city of 300,000 reported 450 deaths and 1,000 injured this week.
The fugitive leader of the country's parallel Shia unrest has demanded the withdrawal of troops from Iraq.
The US has declared a truce in Falluja but fighting continued as night fell.
We went into pause but the enemy kept attacking us on the western side of the city
Maj Pete Farnum
US marine officer
Late on Friday, two US soldiers were reported missing following an ambush on their convoy west of Baghdad.
An American military spokesman said the incident happened near Baghdad International Airport around midnight local time.
Falluja fighting
Gunfire and mortar blasts echoed across Falluja, and a marine officer who spoke to AFP news agency on condition of anonymity predicted it would "get worse before it gets better".
Another officer, Maj Pete Farnum, said his men had tried to keep the noon (0800 GMT) truce on Friday but attacks by militants had not eased.
"We went into pause but the enemy kept attacking us on the western side of the city," he said.
"We had to defend ourselves so we asked for permission to return to offensive operation. This was granted."
However, the ferocity of the battle for the city appeared to have eased since the US administrator in Iraq, Paul Bremer, announced the 24-hour truce to allow for peace talks.
US troops are said to be allowing women and children to leave the city but are stopping men as they search for suspects in the killing and horrific mutilation of four American security guards in Falluja at the end of March.
Coalition lashed
Ghazi Ajil al-Yawer, a Sunni Muslim member of the Iraqi Governing Council (IGC), said he was ready to resign if the US did not seek a peaceful solution to the crisis in Falluja.
"How can a superpower like the US put itself in a state of war with a small city like Falluja? This is genocide," he told AFP news agency on Friday, the first anniversary of the fall of Saddam Hussein.
Fellow IGC member Adnan Pachachi said the Falluja offensive was "illegal and totally unacceptable" whilst Kurdish IGC member Mahmoud Uthman described US policy as counter-productive.
The Iraqi interim Human Rights Minister, Abdel Basit Turki, and a member of the Iraqi Governing Council's rotating presidency, Iyad Allawi, both resigned on Friday without giving a reason for their decision.
Moqtada Sadr, the radical cleric whose followers have been directing violent unrest in Shia areas since Sunday, has demanded the withdrawal of coalition troops from Iraq.
Speaking in a sermon read out at Friday Prayers by an aide in the town of Kufa, he said US President George W Bush could no longer point to Saddam Hussein or weapons of mass destruction as reasons to be in Iraq.
"You are now fighting an entire nation, from south to north, from east to west, and we advise you to withdraw from Iraq," said Mr Sadr, who is the subject of a coalition arrest warrant.
'Serious' threat
President Bush has been consulting other coalition leaders by telephone, speaking to Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski and El Salvadoran President Francisco Flores.
A senior US commander, Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt, said in Baghdad that operations to quell Shia unrest were going well.
UK Foreign Secretary Jack Straw has said the coalition is facing its "most serious" threat since the end of the war.
The US has reported the deaths of at least 42 of its soldiers in combat since Sunday and militants are holding a number of foreign nationals hostage, including three Japanese citizens, two Palestinians and a Canadian.
Russia has called on the sides in Iraq to show restraint and warned of "an impending humanitarian disaster" in Falluja.
news.bbc.co.uk |
