The Washington Times reports this morning that calm has returned to Sadr City after weeks of fighting between the Iraqi Army and the Mahdi Army;
With not a Shi’ite fighter in sight, shoppers pushed through markets and cars packed the streets in Baghdad”s Sadr City yesterday — a positive early sign for Iraqi forces in their bid to impose control after a truce with the militia in its stronghold.
But while peace held in the sprawling slum a day after thousands of Iraqi troops rolled in, there were indications that militants were increasing their activity elsewhere. Skirmishes broke out in some nearby districts, including a clash that the U.S. military said killed 11 Shi”ite gunmen.
Support for anti-U.S. Shi’ite cleric Muqtada al Sadr is high among Sadr City”s 2.5 million residents, nearly half the population of Baghdad. Many see his Mahdi Army fighters as their protectors against Sunni insurgents and the distrusted U.S.-led forces.
People yesterday, however, seemed relieved by the deployment and the calm it brought after weeks of clashes between his Mahdi Army fighters and allied U.S. and Iraqi troops on the edges of the district and in its southern sector.
Although they call him “anti-US cleric” al Sadr is also anti-democracy. He wants to establish a government that resembles that of the Islamic Republic in Iran.
Part of the cease-fire agreement between the Mahdi Army and the Iraqi Army was that US forces wouldn’t be allowed into Sadr City. The Washington Post, unwilling to give the US forces any credit for their victories in Iraq as evidenced by this headline;
The Post pounds that point home throughout the article;
An offensive against militias in the southern city of Basra earlier this year required hastily organized support from U.S. and British forces, but this week’s deployment of thousands of Iraqi troops into Sadr City so far has included no overt assistance from the U.S. military.
No overt assistance other than the training, weapons and equipment over the past five years. I guess that’s the only way the reporters could get the article on the front page – disparage US troops in the headline. But that must be the way the media plans to take this victory from the perseverance of the Bush Administration and our troops on the ground, by highlighting that tiny clause in the surrender of Sadr City.
However, the story that the Post misses, the Times reports;
But the U.S. military said it killed 11 Shi”ite gunmen in the nearby New Baghdad area. It said four heavily armed militants were killed while riding in a sport utility vehicle, four others were killed because they engaged in suspicious behavior, and three were killed after they were spotted planting two separate roadside bombs.
Lt. Col. Steven Stover, a U.S. military spokesman, said U.S. troops were acting to stem “an increase in extremist activity” in the neighborhood “when everyone was focused on Sadr City.”
So US forces are everywhere in Iraq, except Sadr City, and the Post wants to focus on that tiny aspect of the whole story in the Middle East.
