Redstate

By mbecker908 Comments (5) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

From CNN, with a hat tip to Captain's Quarters...

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said on Saturday that Iraq's armed forces are set for an assault on Baghdad to take out militias and rogue security forces.

Aided by multinational troops, the Iraqi forces "will hunt down all outlaws regardless of their sectarian and political affiliations," al-Maliki said at an Iraqi Army Day parade.

"We will also severely punish those [security forces] who do not carry out orders or operate in a partisan or sectarian way," he said.

Forces will search out insurgents neighborhood-by-neighborhood, The Associated Press reported, and will start the assault this weekend.

The announcement came two days after al-Maliki and President Bush spoke by video conference for two hours.

We'll see if anybody is learning anything from the Ethiopians in a few days. The search and destroy (hopefully) starts this weekend and is supposed to be street to street.

If Sadr and some thousands of his supporters are partying in Hell with Saddam by this time Tuesday I'll feel better about the whole effort. If they're working on a national unity government that doesn't require a large - very large - number of dead militia supporters then we should move the troops to Kurdistan.

As long as armed militias are allowed to run free and unmolested anywhere in Iraq, things will not get better. Hopefully, Maliki will not feel constrained by AP and the NYT or JAG lawyers when the Iraqi forces encounter militias. I'm hoping that "take out" means the same thing in Baghdad as it does in Phoenix.