August 08, 2004

Iraq PM Orders Fighters Out of Najaf; Toll Climbs

Iraq's interim prime minister ordered Shi'ite fighters to lay down their weapons and leave the holy city of Najaf Sunday, but the militiamen fortified their positions around an ancient cemetery with mines.

Witnesses said clashes erupted again Sunday in Najaf and also the squalid Baghdad district of Sadr City, as the death toll from four days of fighting in several regions mounted.

The enemy body count was already conservatively estimated at 300 bad guys that have died in the fighting in the last 2-3 days, so if there are more, that's a lot!
Clearly, Allawi is kicking ass and taking names--literally!
Not only did he make this suprise visit to Najaf, but he's just reinstated the death penalty, so Saddam and anyone else who's committed serious crimes like murder and kidnapping is in big trouble.
And the other big Shiite cleric in Iraq, al-Sistani, who ran interference for al-Sadr in the past, just flew to London on Friday, claiming "heart trouble."
This leaves the way clear "spiritually" in Najaf for Coalition and Iraqi forces to take on the Sadr insurgents once and for all.
Just to be on the safe side, Allawi has also shut down Al-Jazeera's operations in Iraq for a month because they're "inciting violence!"
I like this Allawi guy a lot.
Of course, I thought he had style when I read a few weeks ago that he'd personally executed 6 imprisoned murderers with his own handgun!
This has become the stuff of Iraq urban legend, so whether it's true or not, fear still commands respect in Iraq, which is, sadly, still a dangerous and lawless place.
Allawi is the true representative and leader of his people who want these jihadi killers to stop their mayhem which is killing primarily other Iraqis so that the rest of Iraq can get on with rebuilding their country and transforming it into a secular 21st democracy.
(And for those of my fellow Americans--many of whom are also Conservatives--who thought we should have gone into Fallujah with guns blazing, flattened the town and killed everyone in it, especially al-Sadr, I think taking this way of letting the Iraqis sort out the al-Sadr problem themselves is going to work out far better for all concerned and will effect a more lasting solution than his mere bloody death at the hand of U.S. soldiers would have.
Al-Sadr didn't have that many in his "army" to start with and now several thousand are dead because they fought the losing end of battles against U.S. Marines.
His fellow Shiite Ayatollah al-Sistani has abandoned him.
And now the new Iraqi president has called on him to lay down his arms.
It's got to look really bleak for him.
Sometimes letting a man live broken and alone is greater punishment than just killing him and this living end deprives him of martyrdom and its consequent wave of new insurgents.)