US troops face hellish fight in Sadr City concrete jungle

[leftchick]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1514&e=12&u=/afp/20040923/wl_mideast_afp/iraq_sadr_us_040923111303

<snip>


It's the tail end of more than 24 hours awake, face greased, sitting waiting to patrol the street in his Bradley tank and blow up the bombs planted there by fundamentalist cleric Moqtada Sadr's Mehdi Army.


The goal is to control the first square kilometre (less than a square mile) of Sadr City's winding alleyways and labyrinth of minarets and grey cinderblock tenements and make it a model of law and order.


The battalion raided the Sadr enclave Tuesday night and were greeted by a hail of mortar and rocker-propelled grenade (RPG) fire. Still, they managed to seize back a thin sector of the shantytown as a first step to breaking the will of the Mehdi Army.


On its newly-won turf, the military hopes to spend millions of dollars on sewage, water and electricity and weaken the support for Sadr's fighters in the district's tough northern sector, dense with snipers and young men ready to die in the name of Islam.

[wtmusic]

1. "Breaking down the will of the Mehdi army..."

Good effing luck. :eyes:

[mike_c]

2. meat grinder....

Murderously, relentlessly imposing the will of the colonial masters. Iraq will be a client state even if there's nothing left but rubble above ground and oil below.

[gratuitous]

3. Wow, it's a good thing events are unfolding so well

Otherwise I'd worry that our military folk are again being given an impossible assignment by incompetent hacks who put political considerations above military strategy.

I'm sure that seizure of a thin sector of a shantytown will totally break the will of the Mehdi army. The Mehdis ought to just lay down their weapons now, doncha think?

[bemildred]

4. Trying to build a "strategic hamlet" in Sadr City eh?

Haven't learned a damn thing.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/VNstrategic.htm

[Supersedeas]

5. Shhhhh....today Blitzer is talking about Rather--this is a post-Nov topic

[Javaman]

6. So let me get this straight...

"On its newly-won turf, the military hopes to spend millions of dollars on sewage, water and electricity and weaken the support for Sadr's fighters in the district's tough northern sector, dense with snipers and young men ready to die in the name of Islam."

These guys fighting for the freedom of there country will suddenly say, "oh look a part with running water, let's put done our guns and make nice"

Holy crap.

So it costs millions of dollars for sewage, water and power for an area less than a mile square. Hmmm at that rate, we will be bankrupt by this time next year.

[paulk]

7. if they want to break the will of the Mehdi Army

the first thing they could do is fix the economy and provide them some jobs. Which, under Bremer's supply side fantasy, is not going to happen. Instead - we're just going to pour more of our money (and blood) into a bottomless well.