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

[lastams]

Quit, did you say quit?
Why they've only redepolyed to a more nonmilitary profile.
Amazing isn't it?
Once again we are presented with the obvious contrast between the administration spin and the reality on the ground in Iraq.
If the defination of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again while expecting different results, then the architects of this war are certifiable.
After five years of war, haven’t they been able to figure out that this is an extremely divisive society that is NOT going to reorganize itself under a united western style democracy?
That for every sect there is a desenting group; in every group a clan, in every clan a dissenting voice;
It is simply not going to be possible to organize and maintain a central independent security force under these conditions.
How is it even possible to find a solution to this quagmire without admitting certain facts on the ground?
How is it even possible to define “victory” without understanding whom and what we are fighting?

[totalliberal]

Most Iraqi soldiers want us the hell out of 'their' country. Let them sort it out. A couple of thousand el Qaeda nut-cases are not going to take over Iraq, no matter what the nut-cases in the Whitehouse say.

[militantlibrarian]

I can't believe it has taken so long. We came in to shock and awe them, and wound up destroying their history, their culture, their religion (which in reaction to our "crusade" has become more violent) and GOK what else. I remember the few of our Vietnamese lackeys whom we decided to take with us pitifully hanging on to our fleeing helicopters. Soon we will be leaving the Green Zone the same way. Only this time we will probably betray the poor folks who have worked for us just as we have doomed those who have worked as our translators -- now hated by their own people -- by not allowing them into our country. Never underestimate the resistance of those who have been invaded . . .

[Rog49Thomas]

And we didn't betray the South Vietnamese who worked with us?

[lastams]

The biggest mistake here seems to be the oversimplification of the Iraqi people.
They are not one big demographic who all think alike.
This is the kind of thinking that has landed us in this mess in the first place;
expecting the Iraqis to act like a western style democracy when they are anything but.
This is a society where loyalty is first given to the family, clan, sect, militia.
The Iraqi “government” is more an armed standoff than a cohesive unit and the security forces reflect those divisions.
We cannot help the Iraqi people without understanding who and what they are.
They are an extremely divisive society that will not yield to our conception of whom we want them to be.

[mrdontplay]

swap em out with some of these Bushies that love war so much.

If you voted for bush you should be drafted into this war.

[likwitfaded]

Hey guys the surge is working! Wait, where are you guys going?

[robXdion]

LOL!!!

[scoobynooby]

Hey american troops, take note and remember when you are called to fight an American uprising that may come soon.

[tililek]

As long as the U.S. is there to take on the war, the Iraqis will not. Why should they fight and die as long as the U.S. forces are there to do the fighting and dying. They might work things out for their own benefit if we just leave them to it without our presence.

They have enough oil money to re-build their country without needing any from the U.S., and they might really do the job without the U.S. there to make decisions.

[lastams]

Who exactly is "THEY"?
The Iranian backed Shiite government?
The Shiite militas?
The Sunni warlords?
The Kurds?
Do we just sell them all a bunch of weapons, step back, and let them duke it out?
We are always talking about they should do this and they should do that;
How about taking a minute and trying to understand who they are and decide just whom we should and shouldn't be supporting.

[1differentdrummer]

Why are our troops there? What is their mission?

[SCharb]

Motherfucker...

So, McJohnny, when's that victory you were talking about?

[SonnyBono]

Love your post - but how did you get M... F... past the HuffPo censors? Anytime I try to use an Anglo Saxon expletive, I get deleted faster than Ctrl, alt, del. Now I'm jeolous.

[totalliberal]

What an enormous cluster-fuck. Hey Bush, yell I am an incredible numb-nut three times then turn into the wind and have a piss. That would fit in perfectly with everything you have ever done.
(Maybe McCain can do the same.)

[Paul]

Great. We're backing the losing side....

[lastams]

Would that there were only two "sides" in Iraq.
Recent events have pretty much proved that even when we separate the Sunni's and Shiites, the Shiites will only start fighting amongst themselves.
So which side(s) should we be on? Hey, there's plenty to pick from;
Iranian backed Shiite government, Iranian supported militas, Sunni warlords, Kurds, and even a few Christians left hiding in the hills.
We always side with the Saudis, who are still the number one financial support for world terrorism. We side with groups like the MEK, whom our own State Department classifies a terrorist organization. We side with the Turks when they want to bomb a few Kurds.
Local warlords like Gen. Qais Hamza (The Godfather) Aboud,
and Iraqi politicans like Ahmad (Trust me!) Chalabi.
And we get to "side" with all these people for the low low price of only 12 billion dollars a month.
You know it’s hard to say which “side” we’re on when at the end of the day the terrorists we are fighting are virtually indistinguishable from the ones that we support, but one thing's for certain, we are not and have never been on the "side" of intelligent rational foreign policy in the region.

[1differentdrummer]

Is there a winning side? That's R thinking. One day we will leave there, a year, a decade or a century from now, and then what will happen will happen. Face it, Saddam was a bad guy keeping equally bad guys in check. It's Chinatown.

[Paul]

Yer makin my point, doncha think?

[robXdion]

OMG!!! This summer is gonna be bananas! This is NOT good people. This quitting soldiers will be insurgents against US troops within 2 weeks. McCain and the Repugs will loose to Obama BIG!

[irishgawdess]

Perhaps the Iraqis are just fucking tired of killing each other? Of course, bush/cheney co will spin this so that the "Iraqis aren't ready to stand up and Americans must do it for them."


How will Petraeus spin this next week? hmmm

[ReasonIsMyReligion]

As the Iraqis lie down, we will continue to lie.
-- GWB

[irishgawdess]

Oh, I like that... thanks.

[conscioushope]

Thanks, Reasonismyreligion~~

I've been born again!

[VOTER]

These things happen during CIVIL WARS.

Tell Mr. Bush..........................................

McClatchy has the BEST news coverage from Iraq which recently included brief interviews with

some of these soldiers and their families. These men believe in their country and hate us.

Tell Mr. Bush.................................................

[jerrypenguin]

If people weren't dying this would be hilarious. I eagerly look forward to how the bushie news-mouths respond to this event.