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Some say U.S. miscalculated in recent Iraq moves

By Rajiv Chandrasekaran and Anthony Shadid
The Washington Post

	NABIL AL-JURANI / AP Radical Shiite militiamen shout from the top of the governor's house they occupied in the southern city of Basra last Monday. Below them is a picture of Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.
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A month later, on March 28, Bremer ordered the weekly paper shut down. According to U.S. officials, he thought that after months of waiting, the moment was right to pressure al-Sadr to capitulate to American demands to disband his growing militia, which had attacked American troops in the past.

But instead of relenting, al-Sadr and his supporters responded with protests, the seizure of government buildings and a spate of violent attacks, unleashing a major revolt in Shiite-dominated parts of Baghdad and southern Iraq that has become the gravest challenge to the U.S. occupation of Iraq.

Several U.S. and Iraqi officials now regard Bremer's move to close the newspaper as a profound miscalculation. Foremost among the errors, the officials said, was the lack of a military strategy to deal with al-Sadr if he chose to fight back, as he did.

"We punched a big black bear in the eye and got him angry as hell but had no immediate plan to disable him, so of course he struck back in a very vicious way," said Larry Diamond, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University who has been serving as a senior adviser to the U.S.-led occupation authority in Baghdad.

"Al-Sadr basically implemented plans he had all along to launch a revolutionary campaign to seize power. The mistake we made tactically was in not moving swiftly and all at once against every aspect of his operation."

Bremer also chose to pursue al-Sadr at the same time tensions were boiling over in Fallujah, a Sunni-dominated city west of the capital. Two days before the newspaper closure, U.S. Marines had killed 15 Iraqis during a raid there, accelerating a cycle of violence that intensified later that week, when a mob murdered four American security contractors and mutilated at least two of the bodies.

In the aftermath, Iraq has been convulsed by a week of tumult in which more than 50 U.S. and allied troops and hundreds of Iraqis were killed, four cities were taken over by al-Sadr's militias, and many Shiites threw their lot in with rival Sunni Muslims in opposing the U.S. occupation.

American military commanders had intended to mount an intense but narrowly targeted operation in response to the contractors' deaths. The plan called for Marines to encircle the city and attempt to pick off the few dozen insurgents who they believed were behind repeated attacks on American personnel.

But as with the campaign against al-Sadr, the military plan to quell Fallujah appears to have been based on faulty assumptions. Instead of disgorging the insurgents, many residents rallied to support them by joining the fight against the Marines. People in other cities, including Shiites who used to regard Fallujah's residents as the hillbillies of Iraq, rushed to donate blood and money. Sunnis in Fallujah and elsewhere in central Iraq who had deemed al-Sadr a troublemaker began to laud him as a hero.

All of a sudden, Bremer did not just have a two-front war on his hands, but one in which each side was drawing strength from the other.
 
"It has been the perfect storm," an official with the occupation authority said. The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said there is wide agreement among political strategists working for the authority that military action in Fallujah was justified after the savage deaths of the contractors. But there is greater dissension within the authority over the tactics employed against al-Sadr, the official said.

"Did we have to go after him right now?" the official said. "It should have been delayed. Dealing with both these problems at one time is crazy, if not suicidal."

Al-Sadr's rise

Before the war, al-Sadr was little known, even among the Shiite clergy. But in the chaos that followed Saddam Hussein's fall, he came to prominence on the strength of the legacy of his cleric father, Mohammed Sadiq al-Sadr, whom Saddam had killed. The younger al-Sadr's following was mainly rebellious young clerics who bridled at the reticence and conservatism of the mainstream clergy.

In one of his first interviews after the fall of Saddam's government, al-Sadr warned the Americans not to alienate Shiites.

"You can read history," he said. "They will reject any government brought by America, any leader, any state. They have rebellion in their hearts."

Al-Sadr intensified his rhetoric over the summer — organizing weekly demonstrations, denouncing the occupation, demanding an American withdrawal, then forming a militia that he declared would be unarmed.

In October, in what U.S. officials described as an ambush, al-Sadr's followers fought a gunbattle with U.S. troops. Two U.S. soldiers and two of al-Sadr's men were killed.

Although al-Sadr's public profile faded over the winter, he and followers turned their attention to strengthening the movement's militia, known as the al-Mahdi Army. The militia began in August with perhaps 500 followers and was ridiculed at the time for its ragtag quality. Estimates of its strength now usually run from 3,000 to 10,000.

The militia often handled security at religious festivals and Shiite sites in Najaf, Karbala and Baghdad, its members dressed in trademark black. But in March, militia members were blamed for the destruction of a Gypsy village in southern Iraq long known for containing Iraq's equivalent of a red-light district. More than 1,000 residents were driven out, and the village — with the help of looters — was razed.

In public, the militiamen — drawn from the Shiite underclass — displayed a militancy infused with Shiite Islam's narrative of suffering and martyrdom.

"We're impatient," a group of heavily armed militiamen shouted in Nasiriyah in January, drilling in a circle in a dusty courtyard. "We want death tonight."

U.S. reacts to al-Sadr

Inside the marble-walled Baghdad palace that serves as the occupation authority's headquarters, al-Sadr's anti-American rhetoric alarmed Bremer and his staff. "There was a conclusion early on that this guy was trouble and needed to be contained," said a senior U.S. official, who spoke on condition he not be identified by name. "But there was not a clear plan on how to go about it."

Bremer and his top aides hoped al-Sadr's popularity would wane and that other, more senior and moderate clerics would draw away his supporters, the official said. But on the chance that would not occur, the occupation authority sought to pressure him with the threat of arrest.

In late July, U.S. officials asked an Iraqi judge to investigate al-Sadr's role in the killing of Abdel-Majid Khoei, a fellow Shiite cleric who was killed in April 2003 shortly after returning to Iraq from exile in Britain. After a discreet investigation, the judge issued arrest warrants in August for al-Sadr, his top deputy and 11 other people.

But U.S. officials chose not to execute the warrants right away and kept them secret. "The danger was, if we arrested someone like that, we'd make him into a martyr," said a former official with the occupation authority who was familiar with the effort to deal with al-Sadr.

Instead, the occupation authority sought to use the warrant as a cudgel to moderate al-Sadr's statements and actions. The existence of the warrant was conveyed to al-Sadr through an intermediary with the explicit message that if he did not tone down, he would be detained, the senior official said. Although al-Sadr did tone down his public statements for a few weeks, he continued to expand his militia.

By last month, though, Bremer's calculus had changed. With the planned handover of sovereignty less than 100 days away, political officers within the occupation authority called for more aggressive efforts to disband al-Sadr's militia on the grounds that the continued existence of the al-Mahdi Army was preventing other Shiite militias from disarming. If the Americans failed to demobilize Iraq's disparate militias before ending the occupation, it likely would impede the country's democratic transition, the political officers had warned.

By late March, Bremer decided to make an initial move against al-Sadr by going after the newspaper. Al-Hawza, which churns out 10,000 copies a week, had been regularly printing material deemed by U.S. officials as incitements to violence — a violation of one of Bremer's decrees.

"Al-Sadr was way over the line," a U.S. official involved in the decision said. "There was no question he was breaking the law."

U.S. enters Fallujah

Before members of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force arrived in Fallujah last month to replace units of the Army's 82nd Airborne Division, they were encouraged to grow mustaches as a gesture of goodwill in a country where most men sport some form of facial hair. They also attended courses on Islamic culture and conversational Arabic.

The Marines hoped their attention to local sensitivities would help to pacify Fallujah, a Sunni-dominated city 35 miles west of Baghdad where resistance to the occupation has been fiercer than anyplace else in Iraq. It is the place where a shoulder-fired missile brought down a Chinook transport helicopter in November, killing 16 soldiers, and where American convoys are attacked by grenades daily.

The Marines wanted to change Fallujah with rewards instead of raids. They arrived as a benevolent force for economic development and political liberalization, armed with millions of dollars to contribute to the region's improvement.

The Marines were cautioned by local tribal and religious leaders that the best way to avoid violence was to stay away from the city. "People here don't like to see American troops in their streets," said Khamis Hassnawi, Fallujah's senior tribal leader. "If they want to prevent bloodshed, they should stay outside the city and allow Iraqis to handle security inside the city."

But on March 26, two days before the closure of al-Hawza, the Marines entered Fallujah to conduct a raid on suspected insurgents. What began as an early-morning search operation spiraled into a daylong firefight with residents in which 15 Iraqis and one Marine were killed.

In the course of a day, all the goodwill the Marines had tried to build evaporated.

No clear plan

When Bremer ordered the shutdown of al-Hawza, there was no intention to use force to apprehend al-Sadr or leaders of his militia, according to occupation authority officials familiar with the decision.

One U.S. official said there was not even a fully developed backup plan for military action in case al-Sadr chose to react violently. The newspaper closure was intended "to send another signal to al-Sadr, just like telling him about the arrest warrant," the official said. "In hindsight, it was a huge mistake. The best-case scenario was that he would ignore it, like the earlier threat, or that he would capitulate. The worst case was that he would lash back. But we weren't ready for that."

At the time, occupation-authority officials figured that al-Sadr had between 3,000 and 6,000 militiamen, only 2,000 of whom were armed fighters — a figure that seems to have turned out to be a vast underestimate. "We were relying on the most optimistic predictions possible," the official said.

Officials in Washington familiar with the deliberations of both the National Security Council and the Joint Chiefs of Staff said they knew of no high-level meetings before the closure of al-Sadr's paper in which either group reviewed military plans girding for a possible violent backlash.

But the officials said the decision to move against al-Sadr was fully supported by senior Bush administration officials. And while top officials may not have been familiar with military details, one senior administration official said Washington had repeatedly advised Bremer and U.S. commanders in Iraq to ensure they were prepared for trouble if they went after al-Sadr.

Daniel Senor, Bremer's spokesman, said the decision to move against al-Sadr in late March was prompted by "a real trend in the ramping-up of very inciteful, highly provocative rhetoric" from al-Sadr "that was directed at promoting violence against Americans during a very emotional time."

"We believe we had a responsibility to address it head-on," he said. "We had a concern that if he was left unchecked, Americans could wind up getting killed."

When Bremer moved against the newspaper, the clerics around al-Sadr saw it as the first step in a long-anticipated attack. They concluded it was time for a showdown. Without a show of force, they feared, U.S. officials would only be encouraged to take further steps.

"They wanted to hide the Shiite voice by closing the newspaper," said Fuad Tarfi, a spokesman for al-Sadr in Najaf.

Within hours, the clerics ordered a full mobilization. Protesters flooded the traffic circle in front of the newspaper's offices for a noisy rally, an action they would repeat over the next two days.

Three days after the newspaper was closed, on March 31, the demonstrations escalated. Instead of loitering in front of al-Hawza's offices, hundreds of al-Sadr supporters marched in a tight military formation to the fortified entrances of the occupation authority.

"Today is peaceful," they screamed. "Tomorrow will be military."

That same day, in an unrelated incident, four American civilians working for a private security firm were ambushed with assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades as they drove through Fallujah. Residents mutilated the bodies of at least two of the men, dragged them through the streets, hung them from a bridge and burned them while a crowd cheered.

As soon as word of the incident reached Baghdad, "it was clear we would have to deliver a serious response," a senior U.S. official said. "We were going to have to do something significant to clean up the town."

With Fallujah having become the most immediate crisis, officials with the occupation authority assumed moves against al-Sadr would be put on hold.

"We didn't want to fight two fires at once," the senior official said.

Pressure builds

Instead of de-escalating, the Americans kept increasing the pressure on al-Sadr. On April 3, U.S. forces arrested Mustafa Yaqoubi, al-Sadr's top deputy, on charges of involvement in the killing of Khoei, the Shiite cleric.

"We didn't choose the time for the uprising. The occupation forces did. It's clear that by arresting Sheik Yaqoubi and closing the Hawza newspaper, they wanted to provoke the Shiites," Tarfi said. After Yaqoubi's arrest, al-Sadr followers began boarding buses and trucks for Kufa, a town next to Najaf where al-Sadr the day before had called for direct attacks on occupation forces.

After daybreak April 4, hundreds of al-Sadr loyalists took over the headquarters of the city's traffic-police station and a second government building, both surrendered by local police and officials without a fight. The next target was the coalition headquarters, which was protected by private guards and Salvadoran troops.

Alarmed to see the throng moving toward them, the soldiers and guards fired percussive rounds designed to break up the crowd. Some witnesses said the sound rounds were followed by mortars.

At one point, a vehicle carrying four Salvadoran soldiers was caught outside the gate. Demonstrators overwhelmed its terrified occupants, seizing and killing one prisoner on the spot by putting a grenade in his mouth and pulling the pin. Within hours, the loudspeakers of the Kufa mosque announced that the al-Mahdi Army held Kufa, Najaf, Nasiriyah and al-Sadr City, Baghdad's teeming Shiite slum. Many Iraqi police officers, paid and trained by the U.S.-led coalition, had joined the assault on its quarters.

Al-Sadr issued a typewritten statement: "Terrorize your enemy. God will reward you well for what pleases him. It is not possible to remain silent in front of their violations." Within the hour, a U.S. patrol was ambushed in al-Sadr City. At least four soldiers died on the scene and four more died in the next few hours.

Survivors radioed for reinforcements. The unit racing from the base camp into the massive slum was met by a hail of fire from rooftops, alleys and windows. Every road was barricaded with concrete blocks, construction debris and trash.

By nightfall, both sides had reached a point neither anticipated. "This morning, a group of people in Najaf have crossed the line, and they have moved to violence," Bremer said. "This will not be tolerated."

Last Monday, more than 1,000 U.S. Marines sealed off Fallujah and set in motion an operation aimed at tracking down people responsible for the slaying of the four Americans. The same day, Bremer called al-Sadr an outlaw and "pledged to reassert the law and order which the Iraqi people expect."

The two-front war had begun.

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