[Mb-civic] NYTimes.com Article: The Road to Confrontation in Najaf

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The Road to Confrontation in Najaf

August 21, 2004
 


 

As we write this, the outcome of the tense standoff at the
Imam Ali Mosque in Najaf remains uncertain. What is clear
is that this potentially decisive showdown began when and
where it did because of serious lapses in the American
military command structure in Iraq. As The Times reported
earlier this week, the confrontation began when a newly
arrived Marine Expeditionary Unit in Najaf started
skirmishing with Moktada al-Sadr's Shiite militia without
its officers first clearing that decision with top American
commanders in Baghdad or with Iraqi political leaders. 

Mr. Sadr's determination to challenge the authority of
Prime Minister Ayad Allawi's interim government might have
made an eventual military showdown inevitable. But Mr. Sadr
is a man who has known how to turn confrontations,
particularly those initiated by American troops, to his own
political advantage. Choosing the time and place for facing
him down should have been up to the Iraqi authorities, in
consultation with American military and political leaders.
Although the Allawi government has supported the notion
that a showdown with Mr. Sadr was necessary, it probably
would not have chosen to fight it out at the world's most
revered Shiite shrine, or to take a stand during the week
that Iraqis convened in Baghdad to choose a new interim
assembly. 

This is not the first time a newly arrived Marine unit has
rushed into a confrontation that was not thought through
enough. Roughly the same thing happened last April in
Falluja. The ultimate result was a costly American pullback
that left the city a haven for insurgents. Americans now
have to ask why the right lessons were not learned from
that debacle and applied in Najaf. The fault lies less with
the Marine Corps, which is, after all, trained to be
America's most gung-ho fighting force, than with the faulty
chain of command that left this politically sensitive
decision in their hands. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/21/opinion/21sat1.html?ex=1094112480&ei=1&en=c6b1bcd5716e5f87


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