Letter from Baghdad - Dispatch # 5
Dec. 19, 2006
The sectarian violence has been somewhat less spectacular since the much-publicized attack in Sadr City some weeks ago, but it is persistent nonetheless and colors everything that happens in the city. I can’t claim to have studied war and warfare enough to be able to pronounce one way or the other whether Iraq is in the midst of a civil war, even if I had every single bit of evidence that might support one argument or the other. To the extent that the happenings of the country are shaped by—and shape in turn—the violence between the two sects, proclamations of a civil war are at the least not unfounded.
It’s all very difficult for coalition forces, too, because we don’t want either side to “win.” I’m not saying that it would be justified to side with one of the participants even if we did, but at least in that case we’d be able to identify “the enemy.”
As it is, you all probably remember talk of the “Sunni triangle” that was so publicized earlier in the war, and for good reason: since Saddam’s party (Sunni) was in power when we entered the country three and a half years ago, we had every right to expect those loyal to the regime to resist our attempts to bring about change. Sure enough, they did, and not for nothing was Fallujah the site of two major offensives in this war—in April and November of 2004. While Sunni resistance is still there, though, and while they make up the entirety of the Al Qaeda members in Iraq, it’s not as though the Shia population is without blame. Plenty of them are more than willing to do harm to coalition forces too, and the Jayesh Al-Mehdi, or Mehdi militia, is one of the most disconcerting organizations in the country. Certain Shia weapons and tactics, moreover, are considerably more feared than Sunni. So it’s not as though there are any clear rights or wrong.
Do the Sunni holdovers from Saddam’s regime, now devoid of most of the power they had, still hold a grudge and pose a threat? Sure. But do you see coalition forces strolling peacefully through Sadr City, a Shia enclave? Of course not. In some areas you have units like ours, working to prevent Shia infiltration, and in others you have units still fighting bitterly against Sunni insurgents. There are no clear answers here, from the top to the bottom.
—Lt. Josh Arthur