The Biloxi Sun Herald BAGHDAD, Iraq - I am a soldier with the 16th Engineering Battalion of the 1st Armored Division. Our unit is presently in combat against the uprising of Muqtada al-Sadr......
Our leaders acted with caution and care to secure ever-stronger cards against Sadr while working to achieve four main goals. The first goal was to isolate Sadr. Second was to exile him from his power base in Baghdad. Third was to contain his uprising. And the last was to get his hard-line supporters to abandon him and to encourage moderates to break from him.
This has been done brilliantly. Sadr is losing everything. Consider just some of the goals we've accomplished recently:
• Goal One: Sadr's so-called Mahdi Army militia now is fighting alone. The people of Baghdad, Karbala and Najaf are not supporting him. His forces are isolated.
• Goal Two: His one-time powerbase, Sadr City in Baghdad, has been lost. Sadr has been exiled. We have him on the run. Other Shia leaders are breaking from him. Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani has left Sadr's call for jihad and uprising to founder on deaf ears. Paul Bremmer and Gen. John Abizaid stunned the Shia community by negotiating a calm in Fallujah. That tail-spinned Sadr's ability to intimidate Iraq's Shia leaders. The Iraqi people of Najaf and Karbala are offended by this Baghdad thug coming to their cities and trying to hijack them into conflict with the United States.
• Goal Three: Sadr and his Mahdi Army militia are insulting the most sacred sites of Shia Islam daily. This is offending Iraq's Shia leaders very much. Our units, in fact, are operating within 500 meters of the most sacred Shia religious sites, and the local people are not resisting. This is what the pessimists at home are preventing you from understanding. Something like this would have been impossible before Sadr and his militia thugs went into there to hijack Iraqi Shia Islam. The people of Najaf and Karbala know we are not there to conquer and occupy the religious sites; we are there to liberate them from this would-be tyrant.
• Goal four: Now Sadr's patrons and mentor in Iran are breaking from him. Grand Ayatollah Kazim al-Haeri in Qom, Iran, is no longer backing him. Haeri was a close intimate to Sadr's respectable father. Sadr has been abandoned.
I'm not blind to the casualties this is causing us. My battalion should be home reunited with family and friends after serving a full year here. Instead, we are still here where the temperature is reaching 115-125 degrees. And some of my fellow soldiers have fallen.
U.S. soldiers are working their hardest. Be strong and persistent in your faith with us. Sadr's militia is desperate, so it is dangerous, but keep this in perspective.
The pessimists would have you believe this is a disaster. Don't listen. I think some of them believe their reputations require our failure because they have been so negative. Eliminating Sadr's threat is part of the mission. We are further ensuring the liberation of the Iraqi people. This has to be done, and we are doing it.
Our leaders acted with caution and care to secure ever-stronger cards against Sadr while working to achieve four main goals. The first goal was to isolate Sadr. Second was to exile him from his power base in Baghdad. Third was to contain his uprising. And the last was to get his hard-line supporters to abandon him and to encourage moderates to break from him.
This has been done brilliantly. Sadr is losing everything. Consider just some of the goals we've accomplished recently:
• Goal One: Sadr's so-called Mahdi Army militia now is fighting alone. The people of Baghdad, Karbala and Najaf are not supporting him. His forces are isolated.
• Goal Two: His one-time powerbase, Sadr City in Baghdad, has been lost. Sadr has been exiled. We have him on the run. Other Shia leaders are breaking from him. Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani has left Sadr's call for jihad and uprising to founder on deaf ears. Paul Bremmer and Gen. John Abizaid stunned the Shia community by negotiating a calm in Fallujah. That tail-spinned Sadr's ability to intimidate Iraq's Shia leaders. The Iraqi people of Najaf and Karbala are offended by this Baghdad thug coming to their cities and trying to hijack them into conflict with the United States.
• Goal Three: Sadr and his Mahdi Army militia are insulting the most sacred sites of Shia Islam daily. This is offending Iraq's Shia leaders very much. Our units, in fact, are operating within 500 meters of the most sacred Shia religious sites, and the local people are not resisting. This is what the pessimists at home are preventing you from understanding. Something like this would have been impossible before Sadr and his militia thugs went into there to hijack Iraqi Shia Islam. The people of Najaf and Karbala know we are not there to conquer and occupy the religious sites; we are there to liberate them from this would-be tyrant.
• Goal four: Now Sadr's patrons and mentor in Iran are breaking from him. Grand Ayatollah Kazim al-Haeri in Qom, Iran, is no longer backing him. Haeri was a close intimate to Sadr's respectable father. Sadr has been abandoned.
I'm not blind to the casualties this is causing us. My battalion should be home reunited with family and friends after serving a full year here. Instead, we are still here where the temperature is reaching 115-125 degrees. And some of my fellow soldiers have fallen.
U.S. soldiers are working their hardest. Be strong and persistent in your faith with us. Sadr's militia is desperate, so it is dangerous, but keep this in perspective.
The pessimists would have you believe this is a disaster. Don't listen. I think some of them believe their reputations require our failure because they have been so negative. Eliminating Sadr's threat is part of the mission. We are further ensuring the liberation of the Iraqi people. This has to be done, and we are doing it.
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