Shiites taxing thin US forces

Until now, the US-led coalition plan for securing transitional Iraq had hinged on training new Iraqi forces. The coalition says it has 70,000 Iraqi police officers and 20,000 members of the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps equipped and on duty.

In February, Gen. Martin Dempsey, who is in charge of coalition troops in Baghdad, decided that Iraqis were ready to take over some security operations in the city. He began moving US troops from forward positions in Baghdad to bases on the outskirts of the city.

But reports are coming in from around the country that Iraqi security forces are refusing to confront the new challenges head on. Analysts now say the best military solution to the rising tide of Sunni and Shiite attacks - and unexpected alliances - is a major increase in US forces.

"We have to live here, so we're not going to go up against the Mahdi army [the militia loyal to the radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr],'' says a detective at the Habibiya police station in Sadr City, who would only identify himself as Abu Kassem. "We're in an incredibly dangerous and difficult position."

The Habibya station was one of at least seven in Sadr City that surrendered to the Mahdi army last Sunday, and its stockpile of 80 AK-47 assault rifles was confiscated by Mr. Sadr's men. Now the Iraqi cops are unarmed, out of uniform, and determined to stay out of harm's way. "The Americans came here so they'll have to deal with it,'' says Abu Kassem.

Neither Iraqis nor the US appear prepared to take on Sadr's militia.

Fighting Shiites "was probably the last thing the coalition wanted to deal with,'' says M.J. Gohel, president of the Asia Pacific Foundation in London, a security think tank. "The [coalition] forces are only a fraction of the figure needed if one wants to turn the situation there around."

The two-front war has coalition forces engaging Sunni militants in the center of the country and armed supporters of Sadr further south, frequently in cities where the US had been hoping to draw down its military presence.

ON Wednesday, the Mahdi army moved freely about the streets of Sadr City. Abdel Ahmed Hussein, who runs a fruit stand up the street from Sadr's office there, says the Mahdi have been too "extreme" but that he has some sympathy for their position. "This was bound to happen,'' he says. "The American troops shot randomly and killed a lot of innocent people. Of course people will turn on them."

But without Iraqi forces, the US is likely to continue being tested by the insurgents.

"Saddam had an army of 400,000, plus his [personal militia] and a vast intelligence service just to keep the lid on this country,'' says Mr. Gohel. "With current troop levels it will be impossible to provide the security required, and the violence will only serve to inspire the global jihad movement."

Indeed, the rising number of Iraqi casualties, many civilians, highlights the dangers for an occupying army when it seeks to put down an insurrection. Broader Iraqi anger is being created by civilian deaths, which are almost inevitable in the street-to-street fighting being seen in cities like Fallujah. There, on Wednesday, witnesses said 40 Iraqis were killed in a mosque after it was struck by a US missile, the Associated Press reported.

Page: 1 | 2