Sistani, Maliki and Sadr Versus the U.S.
BY Herschel Smith
17 years, 7 months ago
Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki’s office is responsible for the removal of high level Iraqi security forces and police for being too efficient in the engagement of the Mahdi army.
A department of the Iraqi prime minister’s office is playing a leading role in the arrest and removal of senior Iraqi army and national police officers, some of whom had apparently worked too aggressively to combat violent Shiite militias, according to U.S. military officials in Baghdad.
Since March 1, at least 16 army and national police commanders have been fired, detained or pressured to resign; at least nine of them are Sunnis, according to U.S. military documents shown to The Washington Post …
“Their only crimes or offenses were they were successful” against the Mahdi Army, a powerful Shiite militia, said Brig. Gen. Dana J.H. Pittard, commanding general of the Iraq Assistance Group, which works with Iraqi security forces. “I’m tired of seeing good Iraqi officers having to look over their shoulders when they’re trying to do the right thing.”
This is part of a larger whole in which what has been called a ‘shadow cabinet’ has been operating based on a sectarian agenda.
Iraq’s prime minister has created an entity within his government that U.S. and Iraqi military officials say is being used as a smokescreen to hide an extreme Shiite agenda that is worsening the country’s sectarian divide.
The Office of the Commander in Chief has the power to overrule other government ministries, according to U.S. military and intelligence sources.
Those sources say the 24-member office is abusing its power, increasingly overriding decisions made by the Iraqi Ministries of Defense and Interior and potentially undermining the entire U.S. effort in Iraq.
Predictions and reporting of the splintering of the Shi’ite militias and leadership are exaggerated. Sadr has not stood down on the rhetoric, calling Bush a “leader of evil.” The U.S. and the Sadrist militias have also been recently engaged in combat action. Sadr, in absentia, is still able to field large numbers of people to chant slogans against the U.S. But perhaps even more powerful than Sadr is Sistani, and his power has been wielded against U.S. interests in Iraq.
Ali Sistani established his nationalist credentials early on. As the invading American forces neared Najaf on March 25, 2003, he issued a religious decree requiring all Muslims to resist the invading “infidel
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