Facing increasing military pressure and political isolation among Iraqis, al-Sadr announced August 21 that he plans to withdraw his supporters from key positions in Najaf. His irregulars have been involved in several armed uprisings against the U.S.-led occupation—mostly in Najaf and the nearby cities of Kufa and Karbala, where the majority of the population is Shiite Muslim—aimed at gaining greater influence within a new Iraqi regime.

Al-Sadr’s announcement reflects the blows the occupation forces have dealt insurgent groups in Iraq, as Washington has continued to take steps to impose the Iyad Allawi government in Baghdad that is largely a tool of American strategic interests. According to press accounts, al-Sadr has likely fled Najaf and about 300 of the estimated 1,000 members of his militia remain in the city.

They are surrounded by U.S. troops, armor, and airpower.

After suffering substantial losses, al-Sadr’s forces have been largely confined to the grounds of the Imam Ali mosque. Al-Sadr counted on the reluctance of the U.S. occupiers and the Iraqi military to launch an assault on the scale that would be needed to dislodge him and his supporters from the Muslim shrine, because of the religious significance of the mosque.

However, Allawi, prime minister of the interim Iraqi government, took advantage of the meeting of a national conference to elect an interim national council and issued a final warning to al-Sadr to vacate Najaf and dissolve his militia. Allawi was also successful in getting the conference itself, with participants from most of the political groups in Iraq, to call on al-Sadr to end his insurgency.

That conference took another step in consolidating a pro-U.S. regime in Iraq. It selected 81 members of a national council that will have limited legislative authority until elections are held next year. Another 19 members of the council will be selected from former members of the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council, which was dissolved shortly after the U.S.-run occupation regime transferred the government to an Iraqi cabinet headed by Allawi on June 28.

Efforts by opponents of the interim government to boycott the meeting collapsed as the contending political groups jockeyed to gain a more favorable position.

In an earlier sign of his growing isolation, al-Sadr had reversed on June 12 his opposition to the U.S.-picked interim regime, called on his followers to lay down their arms, and promised to convert his militia into a political movement. The change of stance took place after Ayatollah al-Sistani, Iraq’s leading Shia cleric, gave his stamp of approval to the interim government.

The latest armed revolt by al-Sadr’s forces reflects dissatisfaction by him and his followers over their ability to influence the interim regime.

On August 17, U.S. defense secretary Donald Rumsfled told PBS television news host Jim Lehrer that the Iraqi government will eventually have to deal with al-Sadr. “At some point,” Rumsfeld said, the situation involving al-Sadr, “will have to change.”

In an attempt to avoid appearing to give in to the demands of the interim government al-Sadr sought to negotiate turning over the keys to the Imam Ali shrine to al-Sistani. But the Shia cleric refused the offer, saying that al-Sadr’s forces must first leave the mosque. “We cannot receive the shrine compound unless they agree to this formula,” said an aide to al-Sistani, according to the Associated Press.

U.S. military forces also stepped up their attacks against al-Sadr’s supporters in Sadr City, named after al-Sadr’s father, who was killed along with two of his brothers allegedly by members of the Iraqi secret police on orders of the Saddam Hussein regime. U.S. military officials told Al Jazeera TV that 50 militiamen loyal to al-Sadr had been killed as dozens of tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles pushed deep into the working-class district of Baghdad.

U.S. warplanes also carried out bombing strikes in Fallujah, central Iraq, killing five Iraqis and wounding six others. U.S. forces routinely bomb targets in the city they claim are “safehouses or strongholds” for insurgents. Fallujah, the center of a Suni Muslim insurgency in April, was one of the cities where the deposed Hussein regime had a strong base.

The occupation forces and the Allawi government have made it clear they will not allow any pockets of dual power to develop through armed revolts, whether in Fallujah, Najaf, or other cities.

In another development, a U.S. Army investigation into the abuse of Iraqi prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad will widen the scope of culpability from seven Military Police soldiers who have already been charged with abuse to include nearly 20 low-ranking soldiers, according to the Washington Post.

Seven members of the 372nd Military Police company that operated the prison have been charged with various offenses. No Army officers have faced charges to date.

In the medical journal Lancet, Steven Miles of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Minnesota wrote that the findings of the investigations along with a review of the translated testimony of detainees indicates that medical personnel at the prison may have played a role in aiding the abuse of prisoners by overlooking injuries obviously inflicted as a result of torture and routinely attributing cause of death on certificates to “natural causes.”

Miles noted that a psychiatrist helped design, approve, and monitor “interrogations” at the prison. In one instance, the journal reports, a doctor permitted an untrained guard to stitch a cut on a prisoner’s face.

An estimated 2,200 detainees are being held at Abu Ghraib now, down from the 7,000 held earlier this year when the prison became the focus of worldwide outrage at revelations of abuse of Iraqi detainees by U.S. military guards.

This conduct mirrored widespread practices throughout the U.S. prison system.  
 
 
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