NY Times, January 18, 2007
Shiite Fighters Are Arrested, Iraq Says
By SABRINA TAVERNISE
BAGHDAD, Jan. 17 Facing intense pressure from the Bush administration to
show progress in securing Iraq, senior Iraqi officials announced Wednesday
that they had moved against the countrys most powerful Shiite militia,
arresting several dozen senior members in the past few weeks.
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In an interesting twist, the militias leadership has not visibly fought
back against the crackdown. American commanders say that the arrests do not
draw the howling objections they used to in 2004, because Mr. Sadrs
militia has splintered so deeply since then that the members they are
arresting are more criminal than political and considered by Mr. Sadr to be
disloyal renegades.
In that assessment, Mr. Sadr could even be using the government and the
American military to purge his own ranks of undesirables.
Mr. Maliki, in the meeting on Wednesday, denied he was influenced by Mr.
Sadr, and he offered as proof the fact that his government was finally
taking painful action against his own Shiite constituency.
In the entire four years I only talked to him twice, he insisted.
Iraqis who live in the neighborhoods where the Mahdi Army is strong say the
primary motivation for avoiding full-scale confrontation with the Americans
is money. Members have grown rich on political channels of financing from
Iran as well as from Iraqi government ministries, the residents say, and
the militiamen do not want to fight the Americans directly for fear of
losing their newfound status.
Ali, the merchant, said the reluctance to fight could be summed up in two
words: Italian shoes.
They know they will lose everything if they fight, he said.
full: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/18/world/middleeast/18mahdi.html
The Iraqi official, for his part, attributed the ease of the arrests to the
governments intensive political efforts with Mr. Sadr through the fall.
As soon as he distanced himself from these death squads, we started
hitting them really hard, the official said.
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