Iraq
On The Brink Of Anarchy
By Julian Borger
and Jonathan Steele
06 April, 2004
The
Guardian
The Bush administration
is facing a nightmare scenario in Iraq, fighting on two fronts against
Sunni and Shia militants less than three months before it is due to
hand over power to an Iraqi government.
Facing a critical
moment in the effort to pacify the country, President George Bush vowed
he would not budge from his June 30 deadline for the transition to self-rule,
while US forces in Iraq opted for a high-risk strategy of attempting
to crush both insurgent groups simultaneously.
American officials
in Baghdad announced an arrest warrant for a radical Shia cleric, Moqtada
al-Sadr, whose black-uniformed Mahdi militia revolted against coalition
forces at the weekend, killing seven American soldiers in the Baghdad
district known as Sadr City. Up to 30 Iraqis were also killed in the
clashes, the worst the capital has seen since its fall to US troops
a year ago.
In another sign
of their tougher strategy, US forces used Apache gunships to attack
targets in Baghdad for the first time since the fall of the Saddam Hussein
regime. The helicopters opened fire over the Shia neighbourhood of Shulla
after militants destroyed a US armoured vehicle.
Meanwhile, a force
of 1,300 US marines and Iraqi troops began moving into the town of Falluja
in an attempt to regain control of the Sunni stronghold, which signalled
its defiance last week by the torching, dismemberment and display of
the bodies of four American private security guards, ambushed in the
town centre by insurgents. The marines imposed a curfew and closed the
Baghdad-Amman road that runs past the town.
Sheikh Hamad bin
Jassim al-Thani, the foreign minister of US ally Qatar, said last night:
"We fear that we are facing a civil war in Iraq, reminding me of
what happened in Afghanistan and Lebanon."
Faced with a rapidly
deteriorating security situation and the prospect of a civil war following
the transfer of power to a yet-to-be-determined Iraqi government, the
US administrator in Iraq, Paul Bremer, cancelled a visit to Washington
to deal with the crisis.
The US military
commander, General John Abizaid, was considering the reinforcement of
his 105,000-strong army of occupation. According to Pentagon officials,
Gen Abizaid gave his aides 48 hours to come up with ideas on where fresh
troops, American or allied, could be found.
Mention of reinforcements
has been taboo in the Bush administration as it faces re-election in
November, but the revolt in Shia majority areas on Sunday, a few days
after the Falluja killings, triggered profound anxiety in Washington.
Democratic presidential
candidate John Kerry said last night: "The administration really
seems to be stubbornly refusing to do what's necessary to avoid the
kind of disintegration that's taking place, and now we see continued
violence."
Mr Kerry echoed
senior Republicans and Democrats who called for a rethink of the June
30 deadline. But Mr Bush insisted the date remained firm.
"The message
to the Iraqi citizens is they don't have to fear that America will turn
and run, and that's an important message for them to hear," he
said. "If they think that we're not sincere about staying the course,
many people will not continue to take the risk to ward freedom and democracy."
The president committed US forces to tracking down Mr Sadr. "This
is one person who is deciding that rather than allow democracy to flourish,
he's going to exercise force. And we just can't let it stand. As I understand,
the CPA today announced the warrant for his arrest."
However, officials
of the Coalition Provisional Authority said the warrant was issued months
ago by an Iraqi judge investigating the murder a year ago of a rival
Shia cleric, Abdel Majid al-Khoei. The warrant remained secret and no
overt effort was made to detain Mr Sadr. Making the warrant public staked
the credibility of the occupation authorities.
Asked when Mr Sadr
would be picked up, Dan Senor, a CPA spokesman, said: "There will
be no advance warning."
Mr Sadr, 30, the
scion of a line of revered Shia leaders, was reported to have sought
sanctuary in a mosque in his home base of Kufa near the holy city of
Najaf, and his supporters pledged to fight to the death in his defence.
"I'm accused
by one of the leaders of evil, Bremer, of being an outlaw," Mr
Sadr said in a defiant statement. "If that means breaking the law
of the American tyranny and its filthy constitution, I'm proud of that
and that is why I'm in revolt."
He ordered his followers
into the streets after the arrest of one of his top aides, Mustafa al-Yakoubi,
and 13 other followers, for al-Khoei's murder, and the closure a week
earlier of his movement's weekly newspaper, al-Hawza.
At the same time
as Sunday's clashes in Baghdad's Sadr City, 24 Iraqis died in gunfire
between Mahdi militiamen and Spanish-led forces in Najaf, about 100
miles south of Baghdad, where a Salvadorean coalition soldier was reported
killed. Mr Sadr's forces also demonstrated in the British-run cities
of Basra, Amara and Nassiriya.
Western diplomats
had predicted that the occupation would remain tenable as long as the
Shia majority acquiesced in the expectation that transition to a representative
democracy would bring it political power.
Yesterday, US officials
played down the significance of Mr Sadr's movement. The Pentagon said
he commanded only 600 militiamen and a few thousand supporters. However,
the Iraqi Shias' most senior religious leader, Ayatollah Ali Sistani,
a relative moderate, was reportedly ambivalent in his response to the
Mahdi revolt.
"The good news
here is Sadr is just one extreme cleric we already knew was an extremist
and by resisting firmly we will send a message," said Michael O'Hanlon,
a strategic analyst at the Brookings Institution in Washington. "The
more nerve-racking news is that Sistani seems to be divided in his instincts."
Senator Joseph Biden,
the Democrats' most prominent voice on foreign policy, compared the
US quandary to a 1920 revolt against British colonial rule. "We
are caught in the middle. The greatest concern here is a two-front war
like the Brits faced." The 1920 revolt was suppressed only after
2,200 British troops and an estimated 8,450 Iraqis were killed or wounded.
The UN special envoy
to Iraq, Lakhdar Brahimi, arrived in Baghdad on Sunday to discuss the
transition and elections scheduled for January, but there is no consensus
on what form of government should take office in the interim.