Monday, April 30, 2007

Malaki Purging Forces that Combat Militias

It would appear that the government of Prime Minister Malaki is responsible for the removal of officers heavily involved in trying to control the militias in Iraq.
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.
While some of these officers were legitimately fired most seem to have been removed because they were fighting the Mahdi Army, the Shiite led militia which is connected to sectarian violence and the current administration in Iraq.
"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."
How can we be supporting a government that seems to be complicit in the sectarian violence gripping Iraq? Have we decided that we will support the Shiite's in the Iraqi civil war? By supporting the Shiite's are we not supporting the Government of Iran which we claim is a threat to both regional security and U.S. security?

Read the rest of this article here.

No comments: