Thursday, April 08, 2004

SHIITE UPRISING?
This article in the New York Times claims that, despite what the White House says, the current unrest in Iraq has the makings of a broad Shiite uprising, something that was greatly feared by critics of the Iraq invasion.

On Wednesday, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld and Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that they did not believe the United States was facing a broad-based Shiite insurgency. Administration officials have portrayed Moktada al-Sadr, a rebel Shiite cleric who is wanted by American forces, as the catalyst of the rising violence within the Shiite community of Iraq.

But intelligence officials now say that there is evidence that the insurgency goes beyond Mr. Sadr and his militia, and that a much larger number of Shiites have turned against the American-led occupation of Iraq, even if they are not all actively aiding the uprising.

posted by Matt Duss @ 12:13 PM

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home