The Good: The Government of Iraq has ordered a crackdown on militias selling black market fuel to Iraqi citizens (about damn time). This has been a continuous cash flow for the Mahdi Army, and this move will put the squeeze on their ability to purchase weapons and payoff their thugs. They might need to stock up as the Iraqi Police have seized a cache that was concealed in a hay truck bound for Baghdad. The Iraqi Cabinet has passed the draft Provincial Elections law and it will be sent to the Iraqi Parliament. This will most likely be bitterly disputed, but is ultimately necessary for political progress in Iraq.
The Bad: A mass grave of badly decomposed corpses has been found in Diyala province, which was Al-Qaeda in Iraq central through the better part of 2007. Foreign Minister Zebari cites some problems with Iran-Iraq-US relations. It should be noted that the Iraq government's greatest fear is probably the US launching a war against Iran from Iraqi territory (can you blame the Iraqis for being so paranoid, why would they want more war?).
The Ugly: The Iraqi government has shitcanned 1,300 members of the Iraqi Security Forces for incompetence and dereliction of duty. I couldn't decide whether this was good or bad, so I stuck it down here. While it's good that the government is clamping down on militia-infestation into it's security forces, this event signifies how much of a problem that infestation is.
Iraqi Security Forces doing their thing...hopefully without sympathies to the bad dudes
See what the others have said:
4 comments:
Having heard about the gas station presence of bad guys -- sounds a little like Mafia type bullies, really -- it is definitely a good thing that now they're going to do something about it. But one wonders with the firing/letting go/desertion of the 1300 policemen how that can come about in any fashion. But at least they're trying.
And since you and I seem to talk to opposite fence posts lately, I'm just going to say that it's my opinion that we won't launch a war against Iran from Iraq -- but then again, one never knows. Such a deep pit to get into.
Stay safe, sir.
Kath
I say the IA getting fired fits well into the ugly category. It was the only rational solution, but it'll have a a Paul Bremer effect: sending them into the arms of militias and insurgent groups they already have ties to. What else are they going to do with all that training and experience?
I'll never forget a group of IA we were with in Baghdad when we found a picture of Sadr hanging on the wall.
"Sadr, goooood!"
Kath,
Mafia is quite right. Everything's a racket.
Alex,
A pic of Sadr, eh? Makes me wonder what they did with Sunni detainees, yikes!
The Thunder Run has linked to this post in the blog post From the Front: 04/14/2008 News and Personal dispatches from the front lines.
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