Iraqi troops recently gained victories in oil-rich Shiite city of Basra in the south, in the Sadr City slums of Baghdad and in the Sunni-dominated city of Mosul in the north.
U.S. military commanders in Iraq are not anxious to declare victory, because the gains may be temporary. The New York Times recently had reporters in Basra and Mosul and Sadr City to examine the changes. What did they find?
First, there has been a “positive change” reported in each location. Death squads are off the streets in many parts of Basra. The Iraqi Army is now patrolling throughout Sadr City. And the U.S. military reports that significant acts of violence are on the decline in Mosul. These gains may prove to be fleeting, but they are real.
Secondly, in all three of these victories the Iraqi military used a similar tactic that leaves the door open for the violence to return. Negotiations often took place instead of clashes and many insurgents were allowed to leave unharmed.
Reporter Andrew Kramer writes that “the crucial lesson, in fact, over the past month appears to be that all sides — the Iraqi military as well as various insurgent groups — prefer, at the moment, not to fight. Rather, as in Basra and Sadr City, the huge Shiite enclave in Baghdad, the Iraqi military appears to have allowed many insurgents to slip out of Mosul, after scores of negotiations with militias and their leaders.”
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