Iraqi air force saluted for Basra actions

[unhappycamper]

Iraqi air force saluted for Basra actions
Stars and Stripes
Mideast edition, Friday, April 4, 2008

The U.S. and Iraqi militaries are calling it Operation Charge of the Knights. And while President Bush and the U.S. command in Baghdad have called it a “defining moment” for the Iraqi government, the recent weeklong Iraqi-led battle in Basra showed both the good and bad of the rebuilt Iraqi military.

According to news reports, U.S. officials learned of the Iraqi plan on Friday, March 21; by Tuesday, the battle was on. But the plan was not what the American expected, officials said.

“The sense we had was that this would be a long-term effort: increased pressure gradually squeezing the Special Groups,” Ryan Crocker, the U.S. Ambassador in Iraq, said in an interview with the New York Times, referring to the splinter groups from the Mahdi Army. “That is not what kind of emerged.”

“Nothing was in place from our side,” he was quoted as saying. “It all had to be put together.”

Published comments by several U.S. military officials said that while the operations showed some promise, its end — with a “truce,” not the decisive victory promised by Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki — was less encouraging.


Rest of article at: http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=53820



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