What happened in Basra?

The MSM’s account of what’s happening in Iraq appears to have little relationship to reality. It could be the media version of the blind man describing an elephant. Or as the Weekly Standard puts it: The Press Botches Basra.

The Iraqi military was able to clear one Mahdi Army-controlled neighborhood in Basra and was in the process of clearing another when Sadr issued his ceasefire. The ceasefire came on March 30, after six days of fighting, and was seemingly unilateral in the sense that the Iraqi government made no apparent concessions in return. By that time, 571 Mahdi Army fighters had been killed, 881 wounded, 490 captured, and 30 had surrendered countrywide, according to numbers tabulated by The Long War Journal. Thus, an estimated 95 Mahdi Army fighters were killed per day during the six days of fighting. In contrast, al Qaeda in Iraq did not incur such intense casualties even during the height of the surge.

The Iraqi security forces were at their best in the smaller cities in Iraq's south. The Mahdi Army suffered major setbacks in Hillah, Najaf, Karbala, Diwaniyah, Amarah, Kut, and Nasiriyah. The security forces drove the Mahdi Army off the streets in those cities within days. The casualties taken by the Mahdi Army in Baghdad, Basra, and the wider south surely played a role in Sadr's tactical decision to call a ceasefire. An American military officer serving in southern Iraq told us, "Whatever gains [the Mahdi Army] has made in the field [in Basrah], they were running short of ammunition, food, and water. In short, [the Mahdi Army] had no ability to sustain the effort." Time's sources in Basra paint a similar picture. "There has been a large-scale retreat of the Mahdi Army in the oil-rich Iraqi port city because of low morale and because ammunition is low due to the closure of the Iranian border," the magazine reported on March 30.

Here’s the NY Times in a theme that was faithfully repeated by the blind, deaf and dumb media even after the militia laid down their arms: Assault by Iraq on Shiite Forces Stalls in Basra.

CNN tells us: Analysis: Iraqis' Basra fight not going well.

A closely held U.S. military intelligence analysis of the fighting in Basra shows that Iraqi security forces control less than a quarter of the city,

NPR chimes in with it's well modulated tones that suggest, not very subtly, that the Iraqi government is out to lunch, referring to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's impulsive leadership style.

After a few days of fighting in Iraq's third largest city, NPR smells defeat for American and Iraqi forces:

The failure of Iraqi troops to crush the militias has raised fresh doubts about the ability of the Iraqis to take over their own security so U.S.-led forces can go home.

Back to the NY Times men, we get this first hand report from QAIS MIZHER, a Times reporter and former officer in Saddam's army. Firsthand Look at Basra Shows Value of White Flag

...by the time I arrived in Basra it was a patchwork of neighborhoods that were either deserted or overrun by Mahdi fighters. There were scattered Iraqi Army and police checkpoints, but no place seemed to be truly under government control.

So we have the NY Times telling us that the Iraqi army controls none of Basra and CNN telling us that the army controls a third of the city. And both telling us that things are going badly for the Iraqi army and Prime Minister Maliki. Who to believe? And why did the militia stop fighting? It's not usual for the victorious forces to lay down their arms.

It took the Leftist "The Nation" to give us the the fevered dream of the Left with this hilarious story:The Lessons of Basra

As the smoke clears over new rubble in Iraq's second city, at the heart of Iraq's oil region, it's apparent that the big winner of the Six-Day War in Basra are the forces of rebel cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, whose Mahdi Army faced down the Iraqi armed forces not only in Basra, but in Baghdad, as well as in Kut, Amarah, Nasiriyah, and Diwaniya, capitals of four key southern provinces. That leaves Sadr, an anti-American rabble rouser and nationalist who demands an end to the US occupation of Iraq, and who has grown increasingly close to Iran of late, in a far stronger position that he was a week ago. In Basra, he's the boss.

And Hitler is alive and well in Argentina, heading the re-birth of the Third Reich.

We don’t even have to reflect on the way the media portrayed the recent assault by the Iraqi army on the Sadr militia which was reported as a decisive Sadr victory and defeat for the Iraqi army. Except for the fact that Sadr’s militia, not the Iraqi army, sued for peace. And Sadr is now saying he may disband his militia. And Sadr is not actually in Iraq but Iran. But to hear the MSM tell it, the Maliki government was discredited and things were going to hell in a hand basket and the surge was a failure and etc., etc., etc. The Weekly Standard again:

But none of the journalists bothered to ask one simple question: if Sadr was so successful, why end the fighting? If Iraq's army was being beaten and Maliki politically weakened, why not press the fight and make the government collapse? As an American military officer serving in southern Iraq told us, "Claiming a 'victory' and then withdrawing from the battlefield is the tactic of someone that is losing."

Of course this interpretation of events in Iraq is nothing new.

Here’s what was supposed to be going on in Basra last year, after the British pulled back. Google "Basra" and you get this headline from the Washington Post As British Leave, Basra Deteriorates

For a totally different report, try Reuters: Iraqis say Basra quieter after British troop pullout

From the Christian Science Monitor we read As British leave Basra, militias dig in.

The International Herald Tribune (11/25/2007) In Basra, violence is a tenth of what it was before British pullback, general says

Attacks against British and Iraqi forces have plunged by 90 percent in southern Iraq since London withdrew its troops from the main city of Basra, the commander of British forces there said Thursday.

The presence of British forces in downtown Basra, Iraq's second-largest city, was the single largest instigator of violence, Maj. Gen. Graham Binns told reporters Thursday on a visit to Baghdad's Green Zone.

"We thought, 'If 90 percent of the violence is directed at us, what would happen if we stepped back?'" Binns said.

Britain's 5,000 troops moved out of a former Saddam Hussein palace at Basra's heart in early September, setting up a garrison at an airport on the city's edge. Since that pullback, there's been a "remarkable and dramatic drop in attacks," Binns said.

Well, yes, pulling your troops out of the battlefield would reduce your casualties.


Is it stupidity, ignorance, blinding bias or a combination of all of them that causes such incredible mistakes?

So what's the latest in Basra? Well, CNN reports Iraqi city appears relatively calm

Security forces in the southern Iraqi city of Basra hunted militants Wednesday in a stronghold of a powerful Shiite militia.

But the violence that paralyzed the oil-rich city last week has died down, with one politician describing the city as "relatively calm and stable.

And Sadr is still in hiding somewhere in Iran. But the MSM hasn't retracted a word about Sadr's "remarkable" victory.

We'll give the Weekly Standard the last word:

It isn't entirely clear why the media leapt to the conclusions that it did about the Basra operations. Perhaps impatience coupled with a lack of knowledge about military affairs was the biggest factor. Perhaps, tired of six months of generally positive reporting about the surge, journalists were gleeful to announce that the situation on the ground was deteriorating. Or perhaps a negative angle was irresistible in light of General David Petraeus's upcoming congressional testimony.