More Than 1,000 Iraqi Soldiers Quit During Basra Fight

New York Times:

More than 1,000 Iraqi soldiers and policemen either refused to fight or simply abandoned their posts during the inconclusive assault against Shiite militias in Basra last week, a senior Iraqi government official said Thursday. Iraqi military officials said the group included dozens of officers, including at least two senior field commanders in the battle.

The desertions in the heat of a major battle cast fresh doubt on the effectiveness of the American-trained Iraqi security forces. The White House has conditioned further withdrawals of American troops on the readiness of the Iraqi military and police.

The crisis created by the desertions and other problems with the Basra operation was serious enough that Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki hastily began funneling some 10,000 recruits from local Shiite tribes into his armed forces. That move has already generated anger among Sunni tribesmen whom Mr. Maliki has been much less eager to recruit despite their cooperation with the government in its fight against Sunni insurgents and criminal gangs.

Read the whole story: New York Times

Comments

[wmbear]

REMINDS ME OF GEORGE W. BUSH During the Vietnam War years. Like attracts like.

[bigironal25]

That's ok boys, instead of standing up as we stand down you just sit down and we'll do the dying for you.If it wasn't for over 4,000 dead and 30,000 maimed American this stupid war would be funny!

[JohnFromCensornati]

Now, that's what I call standing up!

[A Meat Beetle]

1,000 Iraqi soldiers quit? Didn't anyone tell them the surge is working?

[robodweeb]

They were "returning on success".

[robodweeb]

Al Qaeda would like us to invade Iran for them.

Any takers?

Oh yeah, McBomb.

[VivaZapata]

where's mainstream media's coverage of how well we can dispel the myth that the splurge is working? GE brings good things to death. This desertion issue will probably presented as a weakness in these soldiers to do america's dirty work, but they don't want to kill their own, and that's commendable. The real lesson from this is that Iraq is and has been in a civil war; it's not about al qaeda; it's not winnable. we've made a mess that we can't clean up. other nations were willing to come in and assist after sadam's fall, but we didn't want to share in the spoils (at least that's how bush saw it). bet he wishes he could have those offers back.

[VivaZapata]

correction: that's "probably BE presented.­..."

[Ramus]

Endless war brings endless profits to war profiteers. What would happen to the likes of Bechtel, Lockheed-Martin, GE, Halliburton if peace broke out? They'd all go belly up and we just can't let that happen can we?

[EspritDeVoltaire]

Seeing how most of them are there simply because the job market is so bad and they're just trying to feed their families, this is no surprise. These men most likely have more sympathy for their friends and relatives in the militias than for the government.

I'm sure the Republicans are delighted as this will be more reason to keep our guys mired there as targets. The Sunni and Shia politicians have plans to fight this out over the next 30-60 years. Hopefully we'll leave sometime before then.

[lastams]

The important thing about rehashing the mistakes made in Iraq is this:
We continue to make the same mistakes.
The first mistake is how we treat intelligence.
We, meaning this administration, form an opinion and then accept the intelligence that supports that opinion.
This is how we got started, with a game plan formed in Conservative think tanks , then advanced by the Neocons after 9-11. There is still a residual arrogance and hubris that allows the architects of this war to believe that they, and only they, have the real answers, when in fact they don’t even understand the questions.
Second is the assumption that Iraq can be made into a western style democracy, with a strong unified central government and effective security force.
Time after time after time after time, we provide the Iraqis with the impetus to reconcile and never have a plan for when they don’t. If the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result, then the architects of this war are certifiable.
It’s time for a plan B.
Go, stay, build-up, redeploy, whatever, but START with a realistic assessment of the situation.
Iraq is not and never will be a unified centralized democracy. Never. Ever.
Once we accept reality perhaps we can begin to actually define realistic goals and achieve some degree of progress.

[nomobull]

only the beginning.

[Sundialsvc4]

Don't you suppose they KNOW?

Is it really so hard to figure out that a gang of very evil men sitting half a world away in Washington, DC have set "brother against brother" and plied them richly with gold and with weapons so that they might destroy each other at their own hands?

Is it really hard to figure out that the evil plot which is still blandly spelled-out on the "New American Century" web-site is "an abomination that leads to desolation?" Is it impossible to conceive of such great evil? No, it is not.

And the people of the Middle East know that they do not have to be a part of it... no more than we would if such a plot were being carried-out against Us. We would see it clearly and we would resist it relentlessly with every thing we have... as they have done and are doing.

The truth is now at last being thrust upon the American common-man in the form of economic ruin: that these evil men and women will stop at absolutely nothing in their mad pursuit; they will, so to speak, defecate in our holiest places and insist to the end upon their self-appointed right to do so, calling it "a new world order."

A single light burns: "One if by Land." The enemy is here. Lodged within our innermost gates. Posing as our "elected leaders," the truth is not in them.

[janmarie]

the link http://www.newamericancentury.org/
Americans think this a Rep vs Democ issue. This is just a distraction. The people that are pulling the strings are multinationals and the majority are pro-israel neocons. The pro-Israel part...not­hing to do with the poor Jew or religious nonsense but it's about having a base of domination in the middle east.

[robodweeb]

I don't care what John McWar says, we're not succeeding in Iraq.

[Horst]

Sooner or later a full scale Sunni-Shi'ite civil will break out.....13­00 years of Islamic history can't be erased easily.

[Americano]

This is not desertion as we Americans may think. These are Iraqis that do not have their heart and conscience in bring more suffering to their people. In some part of their conscientiousness, they know, they are in the team of the invaders and doing our (USA) bidding. We would not treat our own that way and they know it! Nor should they!

[Paralogos]

I'd really like to be able to say sincerely that the US is to be congratualted for having trained an army that refuses to be used against its fellow citizens, but I suspect that they just don't feel like Maliki's domestic political position is worth getting shot at with live ammo.

[MikeDu]

Its not been widely reported that, the last i heard, roughly 20,000+ U.S. soldiers have refused to return for their 2nd, 3rd, or 4th deployments. Some of them are military women who fear another year long deployment with the same officers who had sexually assaulted them. So it seems a sizable number of U.S. soldiers don't feel like Bush's domestic political position is worth getting shot at either.

[Ramus]

I wonder why we're not hearing more about this. Maybe it might adversly affect enlistments?

[andyboy]

This is great news! Clearly these deserters are more in favor of a political solution.

Maybe they don't think killing your fellow countrymen is the right way to solve their differences.

Just think if the pro-slavery South had just read the writing on the wall and done the right thing we wouldn't have had our Civil War.

It strikes me as unseemly to be arming a country and telling it that they all have to start killing each other cause it's the "American" way.