Doug Lorimer

On August 24, British troops in south-eastern Maysan province abandoned their base, which, Reuters reported had been under “almost nightly attack”. The base has been a target for frequent mortar and rocket barrages since being set up in April 2003.

British military spokesperson Major Charlie Burbridge claimed that the 1200 troops, who had been based at Camp Abu Naji, near Maysan’s capital Amara, were being repositioned “to focus on border areas and deal with reports of smuggling of weapons and improvised explosive devices from across the border”.

Reuters reported that while Burbridge dismissed “suggestions the British had been forced out of Amara, he acknowledged the attacks had been one reason for the decision to withdraw”.

Amara, an overwhelmingly Shiite-inhabited city with 300,000 residents some 540 kilometres south-east of Baghdad, has a large presence of Mahdi Army militias loyal to Shiite cleric Moqtada al Sadr, an outspoken opponent of the US-led occupation and widely acknowledged as Iraq’s most popular political leader.

The August 25 Washington Post reported that the British pull-out from Amara, “underscored the rising power of Sadr’s Shiite Muslim militia”. The Post also reported after the British pull-out, “jubilant residents flocked to Sadr's office to offer their congratulations. Drivers in the street honked their car horns in celebration.”

The August 26 Los Angeles Times reported that after Amara residents, “some hoisting photos of Sadr”, had stripped the vacated base, they burned what remained of the base.

The paper added: “For a short period after the British forces arrived [in March 2003], southern Iraq was considered a haven, even as the Sunni Arab-led insurgency raged in the central, western and northern stretches of the county.

“But the sense of stability soon crumbled as British forces ran into increasing resentment from Shiite tribes, militias and assorted other power brokers.”

Most of Britain’s 7000 occupation troops in Iraq are based in the southern port of Basra, Iraq’s second largest city.

The May 8 London Daily Mirror quoted a British intelligence official as saying that “public mood is swinging towards wanting [the troops] to leave”.

Two days earlier, British troops used helicopters to attack thousands of Basra residents staging a protest against high unemployment, soaring prices and corruption in the provincial governor’s office. Iraqi militia fighters responded by shooting down one of the helicopters.

On August 1, British troop fatalities reached 115 when a soldier died from his injuries after being hit by a mortar attack on one of the two main British bases in Basra.

US military officials and the Western corporate media have claimed that over the past year the war between the US-led occupation forces and Iraqi resistance fighters has been displaced by a “sectarian civil war” between “Shiite extremist militias” and “Sunni insurgents”.

This is despite Pentagon figures, reported by the August 16 New York Times, showing that 90% of “insurgent attacks” are directed against the US-led foreign occupation troops and Washington’s puppet Iraqi security forces.

A survey of Iraqi public opinion conducted in April by the University of Michigan’s Institute of Social Research (ISR), found that “Iraqi political values have become more secular and nationalistic” since its last survey in November 2004.

The April survey, partial results of which were released on June 14, found that 51% of Iraqis favoured the separation of religion and politics (up from 30% in 2004). Only 13% favoured an Islamic government (down from 19% in 2004).

Among the residents of Baghdad, which is where sectarian hostility between Iraqi Shiite and Sunni Muslims is supposed to be most rampant, the ISR’s April survey found that 62% agreed with the statement “I am an Iraqi above all” — up from 30% in 2004.

When asked what they thought was the reason why the US-led coalition had invaded Iraq, 76% of Iraqis surveyed gave “to control Iraqi oil” as their first choice.

The survey also asked a direct question about the presence of the US-led occupation troops — the results of which were not included in the University of Michigan’s June 14 news release, but were posted on August 23 by Marc Lynch, associate political science professor at Massachusetts’ Williams College in his blog.

To the question whether they supported or opposed the presence of the “coalition forces”, 91.7% said they were opposed. Among Sunni Arabs, 97.9% were opposed (up from 94.5% in 2004). Opposition among Shiite Arabs was 94.6% (up from 81.2% in 2004). Even among the previously pro-occupation Kurds, opposition had jumped since 2004 from 19.6% to 63.3%.

Despite the overwhelming majority of Iraqis wanting the US-led coalition forces to leave their country, over the last month Washington has increased the size its occupation force — from 127,000 troops in June to 140,000 by August 31.

According to Reuters, at an August 28 Baghdad news conference US General William Caldwell “hinted at a looming confrontation” with the Mahdi Army.

“The intention is for Iraqi security forces to operate through the entire city of Baghdad”, Caldwell told journalists. Reuters noted that Baghdad’s 2-million-strong Shiite slum district of “Sadr City is largely a no-go area for the Iraqi security forces and even US troops’ few forays there have resulted in fierce gunbattles with [Sadr’s militia].”

Caldwell claimed that the daily murder rate in Baghdad, a city with 6 million residents, had dropped by 46% from July to August as a result of a three-week offensive by US troops and Iraqi security forces against “sectarian violence”, which US officials have blamed for the city’s high murder rate of up to 100 killings a day.

While the UN Assistance Mission to Iraq has attributed most of the killings to “criminal gangs” and to death squads operated by the interior ministry’s “US advised” Special Police Commandos, the Western corporate media — parroting the line pushed by US commanders — has laid the blame on Sadr’s militia.

Typical of such reporting was the claim by the Melbourne Age’s Paul McGeough on August 26 that “Much of the terror on the streets of Baghdad is organised by private militias that have infiltrated the Iraqi security forces. These militias are operated by the key parties in Prime Minister Nuri al Maliki's administration — his government would fall without the political support of one of the worst offenders, the radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al Sadr and his Mahdi Army.”

This was an indirect acknowlegement that it is the US-recruited, US-trained and US “advised” Iraqi security forces that are responsible for “much of the terror on the streets” of Baghdad. At the same time, McGeough peddled the self-serving Pentagon line that it is the Shiite opponents of the US occupation forces, rather than US-led forces, that are to blame for “terror” in Iraq.

On August 26, a 12-hour battle was fought between US-led Iraqi troops and Sadr’s militia in Diwaniya, a provincial capital located 130km south of Baghdad. “The Iraqi army, accompanied by the US Army, attacked areas inside Diwaniya that are known for their support for the Sadr movement”, the August 29 Los Angeles Times quoted a representative of the local Sadr office as saying.

Associated Press reported on August 29 that “Dr Mohammed Abdul-Muhsen of the city's general hospital said the 40 people killed in Diwaniya included 25 Iraqi soldiers, 10 civilians, and five militiamen. He said the hospital treated 75 wounded.”

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