KurdistanObserver.com

U.S. Troops May Find It Impossible To Steer Clear Of Iraq Civil War

By Robert H. Reid
ASSOCIATED PRESS
March 27, 2006

The U.S. military hopes to steer clear of getting trapped in the middle as civil warfare heats up in Iraq, but Shiite outrage over a purported raid on a mosque illustrates how difficult that will be.
With Sunni-Shiite violence worsening every day, U.S. troops may find it almost impossible to avoid getting drawn into full-scale religious conflict.

The prospect clearly has Washington uneasy: As public support for the Iraq mission has waned in the United States, American officials have played down talk of a full-blown civil war between Shiites and Sunni Arabs, mindful that a widened conflict could wreck plans to draw down its 133,000-strong military force.

With the stakes so high, U.S. commanders have been careful not to spell out how they would respond to civil war. But they have made clear that the Iraqis would be primarily responsible for restoring order – with American and other coalition forces playing only a supporting role.

“Whenever it happens, it's Iraq's problem and Iraqis have to take care of it,” Brig. Gen. Douglas Raaberg told The Associated Press in a recent interview. “Rushing in there isn't the answer.”

Raaberg, deputy chief of operations for the U.S. Central Command, said American forces would help only with measures such as sealing Iraq's borders and assisting Iraqi government troops in enforcing curfews.

But handling such conflict on its own would be a tall order for an Iraqi force that Washington acknowledges is not ready to deal solely with Sunni insurgents – much less respond to a more complex and wider civil war.

That makes it unlikely that the Americans could stand in the shadows.

At the very least, U.S. troops could find themselves in the same position as U.N. peacekeepers in the Bosnian war, who came under attack by warring parties either trying to draw them into the conflict.

Those U.N. troops were neutral peacekeepers. But American troops are committed to supporting Iraq's government forces, which are dominated by Shiites and Kurds.

Many Sunni Arabs consider Iraq's forces, especially the paramilitary police, as little more than an extension of militias run by Shiite political parties. Sunni Arabs, by contrast, form the backbone of the insurgency.

U.S. commanders are keenly aware of the urgency of bringing more Sunni Arabs into the ranks of Iraqi forces. America's top commander, Gen. Peter Pace, said last week that heavily Shiite or Kurdish units are not considered by other ethnic and religious groups as “representative of their needs.”

But Sunni community leaders have been slow to encourage their people to join for fear of reprisal attacks by insurgents. Sunnis accuse the Shiite-dominated government forces of maintaining death squads to target Sunni civilians.

To curb those abuses, American soldiers often accompany Iraqi police and soldiers on raids. But the tactic has a downside. Sunnis see the Americans as siding with the Shiites and U.S. troops end up bearing responsibility for the actions of Iraqi troops under their supervision.

That appears to be what happened during the disputed Sunday night raid in eastern Baghdad.

Aides to radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and Iraqi police both said a joint U.S.-Iraqi force raided a Shiite mosque, killing at least 17 people including innocent worshippers.

U.S. officials disputed that account, insisting that Iraqi special forces backed by U.S. troops killed 16 insurgents in a raid on a community meeting hall after gunmen opened fire on them.

“No mosques were entered or damaged during this operation,” the military said, and a non-Western hostage was freed.

It was unclear whether the Iraqi troops involved in the raid were Shiites or Sunnis. But some of the dead appeared to have been followers of al-Sadr, who commands a large following in that neighborhood. Al-Sadr also heads the Mahdi Army militia and plays a key political role.

Baghdad's governor, a Shiite, said he had cut ties with U.S. forces and diplomats to protest the incident. Shiite negotiators suspended talks on a new Iraqi government and the Shiite interior minister demanded a “clear explanation” for the attack.

All this paints a picture of a rapidly deteriorating situation where today's friends are tomorrow's enemies – with the American forces stuck in the middle.

There already is limited popular support in the U.S. and Britain for a continued military role and major new aid programs, former Pentagon analyst Anthony Cordesman warns in a recent study on Iraq.

Any continued political turmoil or “serious civil war,” he says, could make “a continued Coalition presence untenable, and force U.S. and British forces out of Iraq.”

Robert H. Reid is a correspondent at large for The Associated Press and has frequently reported from Iraq since 2003.