1,300 Iraqis Fired For Refusing To Fight
Iraqi Police, Army Members Dismissed After Deserting In Face Of Basra Militias Last Month
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A Mahdi Army fighter controls a road in Basra, Iraq, March 29, 2008. Following last month's offensive, in which many Iraqi police and soldiers refused to fight against Shiite militia. Thirteen hundred Iraqi forces members have since been fired. (AP Photo/Nabil al-Jurani)
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Interior Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf said 921 police and soldiers were fired in Basra. They included 37 senior police officers ranging in rank from lieutenant colonel to brigadier general.
The others were dismissed in Kut, one of the Shiite cities where the fight had spread.
Last month, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki ordered the security forces to confront armed groups in Basra, Iraq's second largest city.
But they met fierce resistance and the attack quickly ground to a halt as fighting flared across the Shiite south and Baghdad.
Since then, government officials have revealed that about 1,000 members of the security forces - including an entire infantry battalion - had mutinied, on some cases handing over vehicles and weapons to the militias.
The majority of Iraqi soldiers and police are Shiites.
Speaking in Basra, Khalaf said those dismissed included 421 police officers and 500 soldiers who had not returned to duty in the southern port city and would be tried by military courts.
"Some of them were sympathetic with these lawbreakers, some refused to (go into) battle for political or national or sectarian or religious reasons," Khalaf said.
But he said that those who returned in coming days and could prove they had been prevented from doing so by the militias would be reinstated.
In Kut, a senior police officer said 400 local policemen have been sacked for refusing orders to combat the militias, including the Mahdi Army of anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.
The officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media, said the Interior Ministry in Baghdad had ordered the policemen removed from duty on Saturday.
Although fighting in Basra eased in late March, security operations are continuing.
Fighting in Baghdad's Sadr City, a stronghold of al-Sadr's militia, has been ongoing for the past two weeks. Fresh clashes were reported Sunday and at least two rockets or mortar rounds were fired at the capital's Green Zone, which houses diplomatic missions and much of Iraq's government.
A senior military commander said Sunday that Iraqi forces in Basra were expanding their sweep of six neighborhoods, with army and police cordoning off the areas while searching for illegal weapons, ammunition and criminal elements.
Lt. Gen. Mohan al-Fireji said the operation, which started on Saturday, had netted significant amounts of weapons, roadside bombs and drugs. He said a large number of suspects had been detained, but he provided no figures.
Al-Sadr, who is believed to be in Iran, repeated on Saturday his demand for American soldiers to leave the country and urged his fighters not to target fellow Iraqis "unless they are helping the (U.S.) occupation."
Despite the strident rhetoric, however, there were signs that al-Sadr was trying to calm his militia to avoid all-out war with the Americans. Al-Sadr is also under pressure from al-Maliki, also a Shiite, to disband the Mahdi Army or face a ban from politics.
Meanwhile, an Apache helicopter accidentally destroyed a U.S. Humvee in eastern Baghdad when a Hellfire missile missed its target and struck the armored vehicle instead, the military said Sunday.
Two U.S. soldiers and three Iraqi civilians were injured in the incident on Saturday, the statement said.
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See all 139 CommentsWow.
Maybe we should just leave.
Now.
Iraqi Police, Army Members Dismissed After Deserting In Face Of Basra Militias Last Month
And we can''t leave until the Iraqi military stands up for itself?
I guess were mired there forever at this rate. Or if McSame gets elected.
Didn''t Petraeus even write an OP-ED piece to the Washington Post on how well things were going training these freedom loving people?
From the looks of this recent development with the Iraqi army, we maybe lucky Petraeus wasn''t involved in training our soldiers and Marines...
However, what is really criminal is the fact that billions of Iraqi dollars currently sit in US banks, untouched, dollars which could be employing Iraqis in building their infrastructure (hospital, schools, power grids, water, sewage, etc). This would get the Iraqi people behind their government (assuming the latter is instrumental in allocating and spending those monies in a manner similar to that described above) and remove their support from the fanatical theocratic thugs vying for power. Then the US can exit with a reasonably good conscious, rather than dropping Iraq on a particular date (per the liberal platform, even if that data happens to fall in mid-stream of the required effort) regardless of the consequences.
...and if our troops refused, the Pentagoons would throw them in prison, maybe torture them...
Hmmm, who are the real baddies?
@@@@
soldiers and policemen who deserted or refused to fight
Do you think that they may have read about Bush and his Texas Air National guard days and Cheney and his 5 deferments and this is a case of monkey see, monkey do...
LOL what an amazing coincidence JUST as bush'' regime plans to stop the troop drawdown!
Like I said before, time to DUMP these idiots and let em fall flat on their azzes and whatever happens there happens, time to cut the apron strings.
"Didn''''t then LT. GENERAL Petraeus have the assigment to train all these freedom loving people how to defend themselves ?
Didn''''t Petraeus even write an OP-ED piece to the Washington Post on how well things were going training these freedom loving people?"
He DID, things are going SO well over there as you know!!
our guy in the back as soon they turn around there
NOT WORTH ONE AMERICAN
for over 2000 years killing each outher and come back
open a gas staion or would like The USA bankrupted
they would
Enough, out now. Let them settle their own religious/cultural/ethnic/civil/oil "war".
Now That Would Be "Compounding the Problem" -- With a 24 year part of the problem
Bush & McBush only creates more global instability
And this is "conservatives" idea of success in Iraq. I guess as long as Halliburton and Exxon are profiting off of this, they''ll be staying the course.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/131836
It makes no sense whatsoever for Shias to kill each other for the pleasure of the Occupation. Maliki''s days are numbered.
You won''t even enlist to defend your own citizenship & the freedom''s it provides.
Vote John McCain to help us succeed in our mission.
Stay the course !!!
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