I think it is because there is actual senior leadership in Iraq opposed to al-Sadr, and we would rather they take care of him. That, of course, is at best an educated guess.

Sounds like the Al-Aqsa Intifada should be renamed the Al-Naqba Intifada.

Well, unlike the U.S. of A., when it comes to national security issues, the Israelis don't have to overcome 45 years of lunatic fringe liberalism. There's far too many of them that survived the holocaust, you see. And although they tend to be way to the left on various economic and social issues, when it comes to killing people who need to be killed, they are without a doubt the creme de la creme.

Frankly, we could learn a thing or two from them on this topic.

As for the Pale-terror-droids, well, they're learning yet again the harsh lessons of disproportionate military might. Similar to the lessons a neophyte mugger in South Dakota might learn; when he -- ahem -- brings a knife to a gun fight.

IIRC it's presently a pilgrimage/festival to the Najaf Golden Mosque for Shiites. A serious firefight among all the pilgrims would not be good news.
Wait till that's over and he's ripe for plucking.
Especially as meantime we can keep on killing his militia and (I hope and assume) rolling up his networks elsewhere.

And once Sadr is out of the way, back to any unfinished business in Fallujah?

"Makes me wonder why we're letting Sadr live and breathe in Iraq"

A very good question... which is ironic. if the press weren't so blinded by Bush hatred they might think of questions like this instead of demanding he apologize for things that aren't his fault and actually hurt him instead of doing playing the Washington Generals to his Harlem Globetrotters.

I've been wondering too why Sadr's camel hasn't been widowed, but every other time I've doubted Bush's short term actions, he's always surprised me.

I'm pretty sure there's a lot going on that we're not hearing about. Think about it: if the people planning the 'uprising' were the least bit competent, do you really think they would have decided to do it when fresh US troops were being rotated into the country, and the current ones hadn't been rotated out yet? That'd be the worst possible time- experienced hands around, and fresh reinforcements backing them up. It'd be much smarter to hold off until *after* the rotation, when troop levels had gone down a bit, and then hit the new guys with the shitstorm.

But that's not what happened, and I'm trying to figure out why. It looks like someone 'misunderestimated' Bush again, but there's gotta be more to it than that. The US military has been killing off the stupid terrorists in Iraq for over a year now, the ones who have survived this long have to be reasonably intelligent, right?

rosignol:

Indeed. One would think that, right?

But, also, indeed, with the Bush Administration, nothing ever is as it seems at first glance.

I've always had a sneaking suspicion that the timing of all this has been planned by us, and that we're playing them like a violin.

Remember when we shut down Sadr's newspaper? That was right before his forces went on a rampage and then "took over" (according to the liberal media) those three cities in the South. Hmm. We shut down is squawk box. His militia go on the offensive. Now, we know . . . exactly where they are. Hmm. And now we have them surrounded. All at the exact time -- in view of the force rotation patterns -- that we just happen to have the largest amount of U.S. boots on the ground, since the entire operation began. And now the force mixture is much more light infantry (e.g., 1st Cavalry), as opposed to the former mixture of heavy armour (e.g., Third Infantry).

Hmm.

Hmmmmm.

The Administration and its theatre force commanders can't possibly be that savvy. Right? And the national media could not possibly be missing the boat so completely.
Right?

Or . . . could they???