Officials foresee no ebb in Iraq violence
Americans and Iraqis agree that the enmity ignited by a government crackdown on Shiite militias remains, setting the stage for 'a hot summer in Iraq.'
BAGHDAD — When Gen. David H. Petraeus and U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker brief Congress this week, they will be hard-pressed to depict Iraq as moving toward stability in the wake of recent violence that sent deaths soaring to their highest level in seven months.
Prime Minister Nouri Maliki's move against Shiite Muslim militias has revealed the gravity of the country's Shiite rivalries, just as U.S. forces are decreasing their presence.
The intense combat in southern Iraq that pitted Shiite cleric Muqtada Sadr's Mahdi Army against Iraqi and American forces has largely wound down for the time being, but the enmity that fueled it remains. Fighting between the two sides flared Sunday in Baghdad, leaving as many as 22 dead.
The military campaign in the southern port of Basra, which the government says targeted all armed groups, unraveled a seven-month freeze on armed operations observed by the Mahdi Army that had been considered pivotal to Iraq's recent reduction in violence.
"We are now locked in a battle," said a high-ranking Iraqi government official, who predicted more confrontations in the coming months. "I think this will be a hot summer in Iraq."
Crocker, in a meeting with foreign journalists Thursday, praised Maliki for taking on militias but said the prime minister had started a fight that could not be dropped.
"Having taken a commendable position that they are not going to accept this kind of presence, they will then have to make good on it, whether it's through removal of heavy weapons or through the other necessary steps to actually take full control of every area where militias are embedded," Crocker said. "And I can't predict when and how that will go. It will be crucial to the future of the country that it proceed."
That's not the only problem.
There also are signs that the group Al Qaeda in Iraq is working to regenerate itself. Car bombs and suicide bombings, the hallmarks of the Sunni Arab extremist group, have crept up since December, according to U.S. military figures.
Overall, last month's 1,079 war-related deaths were the highest since August, when 1,860 people were killed. The sharp increase was due in large part to the Basra offensive and the ensuing battles, which Iraqi officials say killed more than 600 people.
A U.S. military official said that as long as weapons, fighters and other aid to both Sunni and Shiite fighters continue to enter Iraq from Iran, Syria and elsewhere, there is little chance of the country's violence dropping to a level that one could call normal.
