BAGHDAD, 3 April 2008 — Iraq’s security forces need to be strengthened and some troops are “not up to the task,” the US said yesterday after police and army units failed to crush Shiite militiamen in Basra.
“There is still much more work to do in developing and strengthening the capabilities of the Iraqi security forces,” US military spokesman Gen. Kevin Bergner told a news conference in Baghdad.
“Overall, the majority of the Iraqi security forces performed their mission. Some were not up to the task and the government of Iraq is taking the necessary action in those cases,” he said.
Bergner was asked to assess the performance of Iraq’s security forces during their weeklong crackdown on militants in the southern oil city of Basra, mostly from the Mehdi Army of powerful Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr.
The offensive, which began on March 25, quickly set off a wave of clashes between the militiamen and security forces in Basra and other Shiite areas of Iraq in which at least 461 people were killed and more than 1,100 wounded.
The clashes began subsiding on Sunday after Sadr pulled his fighters off the streets following a deal with Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki, who had personally directed the crackdown.
Al-Maliki on Tuesday hailed the crackdown as a success that “achieved the aim of imposing law in the city and restoring normalcy.”
The deal left the militiamen with their weapons intact with some analysts saying the assaults had strengthened Sadr’s hand and left Al-Maliki politically battered.
“It will take some time for the dust to settle and many challenges remain,” Bergner said. These include improving the security forces’ logistical and transport capabilities, their planning, and their coordination with civil authorities, he said. “There also continue to be challenges, particularly in expeditionary logistics over the vast distances involved in this operation.”
Bergner said, however, that the very fact the security services carried out the operation at all — with only limited involvement of US and British forces — was in itself a positive development.
“This is an instance where the government of Iraq asserted itself, made a decision on the deployment of forces and took a very difficult position. These were criminal elements fighting the Iraqi people in Basra.
“The fact that it took such a decision and remained committed to it is significant and is a reflection of the seriousness with which they take their responsibilities of security,” he added.
Iraqi Troops in Show of Force
An Iraqi commander led a convoy of troops firing into the air yesterday in a show of force in a militia stronghold that has seen some of the fiercest fighting in the southern city of Basra.
The Iraqi troops met no significant resistance, although an Iraqi cameraman for the US-funded Alhurra TV station was shot, as they set up checkpoints on the edge of the sprawling Hayaniyah district in central Basra and drove through the main streets, according to witnesses.
Officials of Mehdi Army militia in Basra said they tolerated the government move in compliance with a cease-fire order by the Shiite cleric under an Iranian-brokered deal to end the fighting. But they warned they would fight back if security forces resumed large-scale raids and arrests without warrants.
A Mehdi Army spokesman said Iraqi forces had raided some houses in Hayaniyah, then withdrawn to a single main street. He said people were moving freely in the sprawling area and gunmen were keeping a low profile. But he accused the Iraqi security forces of creating a “crisis of trust” by violating Al-Maliki’s order not to detain people without warrants.
“Al-Maliki’s orders are the safety valve,” he said. “If the Iraqi Army continues in its provocative raids, the consequences will be bad.” The situation remained calm but tense in Basra.
Bergner said the vital port area had been secured with the arrival of two Iraqi Army battalions and Iraqi Marines.
He also said the Iraqi government had informed the US-led coalition in advance that it planned the offensive, but he declined to give a time frame.
Meanwhile, a roadside bomb targeting a US convoy exploded near a restaurant in Baghdad’s main Shiite district of Sadr City, killing at least three Iraqi civilians and wounding 13, police said.
