I am sure that even in his most pessimistic moments of despair, Juan Cole never thought he would be blogging posts like this:
All hell broke loose in Iraq on Sunday, but I'm darned if I can figure out most of what happened or why...Now the Iraqi leadership (such as it is) is calling for the USA to hand over control of security operations.
So they found 30 decapitated bodies near Buhriz ... Then a mortar shell landed near the house in Najaf of Muqtada al-Sadr ... Everyone just dodged a bullet along with Muqtada, since if the mortar had killed him, Iraq would have been thrown into even greater chaos... Muqtada implied that the US was responsible...
Then the US and Iraqi forces say they raided a terror cell in Adhamiyah. Adhamiyah is a Sunni district of Baghdad and is still Baath territory. But somehow the joint US-Iraqi force ended up north, at the Shiite Shaab district. They say that they took fire from Mahdi Army militiamen. But there aren't any such Mahdi Army men in Adhamiyah. I have a sinking feeling that instead of raiding a Sunni Arab building in Adhamiyah, they got disoriented and attacked a Shiite religious center in nearby Shaab instead...
Then US forces raided a secret prison of the Ministry of the Interior. They captured 17 Sudanese inmates. After an investigation, the US finally acknowledged that the assault had made a mistake.
"The Alliance calls for a rapid restoration of (control of) security matters to the Iraqi government," Jawad al-Maliki, a senior spokesman of the Shiite Islamist Alliance and ally of Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, told a news conference...Hasn't Bush repeatedly said that "as the Iraqis step up, US troops will step down"? So now the Iraqis are standing up and saying, "Let us run our own security." So let's all hold our breath and wait for the US forces to step down, shall we?
Baghdad provincial governor Hussein al-Tahan said he would halt all cooperation with US forces...
Iraq's security minister accused US and Iraqi forces of killing 37 unarmed civilians in the mosque after tying them up... US officials, finally confirming they were describing the same incident, stuck by a statement saying Iraqi special forces, advised by US troops, killed 16 "insurgents" who fired on them first.
UPDATE: The Fadhil brothers say "this incident has received more attention and was met by more objections that it deserves" but then set about distributing the US talking points on the same incident. Your paid propaganda at work right there, folks.
And guess what? I have been banned again from ITM for saying "This is paid US propaganda". Over to my army of loyal readers to post messages of protest on my behalf....
UPDATE 2: The USA claims it is the victim of a disinformation campaign (well, how ironic):
US commanders in Iraq have accused powerful Shiite groups of moving the corpses of gunmen killed in battle to encourage accusations that US-led troops massacred unarmed worshippers in a mosque.
"After the fact, someone went in and made the scene look different from what it was. There's been huge misinformation," Lieutenant General Peter Chiarelli, the second-ranking US commander in Iraq, said.
