U.S. tolerates Shiite militias

Robert Dreyfuss

The Times reports point blank today what ought to have been obvious since the start of the so-called "surge," namely, that the United States has decided to concentrate its fire on the Sunnis and give the Shiite death squads and paramilitary forces -- read: SCIRI -- a free pass. Notes the Times: In Baghdad, American officials seem increasingly willing to tolerate some of those Shiite militias as long as they patrol their own neighborhoods. Administration officials said they had eased up on parts of the timetable for re-integrating former Baathists, for fear of a Shiite backlash. An accompanying Times piece makes this even more explicit, citing Maj. Gen. William B. Caldwell IV, the top spokesman for the United States military : General Caldwell’s comments — combined with praise for the cooperation of Shiite officials and negotiators for the Mahdi Army, the Shiite militia loyal to the cleric Moktada al-Sadr — seemed to suggest that the military was returning to its former strategy of concentrating on Sunni extremists. That would represent a change from American officials’ comments in the past few months that identified Shiite militias as Iraq’s largest threat...

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