Doing The Basra Spin

By Cernig

A report from the London Times today about how swimmingly things are going in Basra is getting a lot of attention from the pro-occupation cheerleading crowd today. The report gushes that reporter Deborah Haynes is "The first Western journalist to enter the city since Operation Charge of the Knights was launched a month ago" - previous reports from Basra having been compiled, presumably, by Iraqi employees of news agencies.

But few have bothered to look at Haynes companion piece on the Time's blog, in which she makes it quite clear in pictures that her time in Basra has been as the sole focus of a dog-and-pony show by the Iraqi military. As she writes in her main piece:

Driving through Basra in a convoy with the Iraqi general leading the Charge of the Knights operation, The Times passed Iraqi security forces manning checkpoints and patrolling the roads. Not a hostile shot was fired as the convoy turned into what was until the weekend the most notorious neighbourhood in the city.

You'd think by now that, given their experience with the American version in Baghdad, reporters would be more sceptical. Indeed there are good reasons to be sceptical about the Iraqi Army's success in basra. Yes, things appear to be going swimmingly - but a large part of that may be because the Mahdi Army hasn't contested Iraqi security forces as they might have. Haynes writes that:

the militiamen warn that the only reason the fledgling Iraqi army had any success was because they continue to observe a ceasefire order by the radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.

And that:

Encouragingly, the first wave of attacks caught the militants off-guard, but two days later they launched a counter offensive, prompting at least one entire Iraqi Army battalion of 1,400 men to flee.
Threats by Mr Maliki to disarm rang hollow and the mission appeared to be on the brink of failure before thousands of Iraqi re-enforcements backed by hundreds of American and British soldiers joined the fight at the start of April. “They [the militiamen] collapsed,” said Lt-Gen Furaiji, claiming that the gunmen were a fraction of the 12,000-strong force that some had anticipated.

Do you think that, just maybe, the small size of encountered Mahdi forces, the lack of counterattacks and the ceasefire are all somehow linked? If so, then Iraqi Army confidence is seriously misplaced and their grip on Basra is seriously over-stated.

The Mahdi Army's zealous Shiism is certainly repressive - and we in the West can certainly welcome a relaxation of it. But to confuse that issue with the military one leads one into the realm of wishful thinking and willful cheerleading. A bit of circumspect caution is warranted, even if one is predisposed to seeing good news in Iraq.

Comments

[1MaNLan]

"The Mahdi Army's zealous Shiism is certainly repressive - and we in the West can certainly welcome a relaxation of it. But to confuse that issue with the military one leads one into the realm of wishful thinking and willful cheerleading. A bit of circumspect caution is warranted, even if one is predisposed to seeing good news in Iraq".

Fair enough, Cernig. Too bad that there are so many journos, pundits and bloggers that will have none of that kind of cicumspect caution stuff. For them, wishful thinking and willful cheerleading are water for the fish. In response, they will ask..."Why do you hate the fish?".

What can ya do? Tell it like is, of course. That's why I like Newshoggers, so much. But, the agenda of reality can be truly threatening when it does not adhere to the real agenda.