GUNS FOR POLITICAL POWER IS ALWAYS A GOOD DEAL:

Iraqi Official Offers Terms From Militia to Avoid Fight (SABRINA TAVERNISE, 1/24/07, NY Times)

An Iraqi official authorized to speak on behalf of field commanders for the country's most powerful militia has approached Western military officials and laid out a plan to avoid armed confrontation, senior Iraqi and American officials said this week.

The official is Rahim al-Daraji, the elected mayor of the Sadr City district, the vast grid in the northeast corner of the capital that is the stronghold of the militia, the Mahdi Army. Mr. Daraji has met twice in the past two weeks with Lt. Gen. Graeme Lamb, a British officer who is the deputy commanding general in Iraq, said a senior Iraqi official in the office of the prime minister.

During the meetings, which took place on Jan. 17 and, most recently, on Monday, Mr. Daraji laid out a proposal from what he said were all the major political and militia groups in Sadr City, the senior Iraqi official said. The groups were eager to head off a major American military offensive in the district, home to two million Shiites, as the Americans begin a sweeping new effort to retake the streets of Baghdad.

Troops Battle Insurgents in Central Baghdad: U.S. and Iraqi Forces Are Attacked From High-Rises; Sunni Area Was Scene of Recent Clash (Ernesto Londoño and Joshua Partlow, 1/25/07, Washington Post)

With attack helicopters circling overhead, U.S. and Iraqi forces waged an intense battle Wednesday to clear armed men from high-rise buildings in a strategic Baghdad neighborhood that had been the scene of a similar day of combat two weeks ago.

The fighting along Haifa Street, a Sunni-dominated area on the west bank of the Tigris River, began before dawn and lasted well into the day, with insurgents firing down from tall buildings, U.S. military officials said.

"We have intelligence information that the terrorist group is back and trying to take some other places," said Ali Dabbagh, a spokesman for the prime minister. "It's a very strategic and important location. It's in the middle of Baghdad; it has a view of all of Baghdad."

If we do their fighting for them the Sadr militia can stand down for now.

MORE:
In a new joint U.S.-Iraqi patrol, Americans go first (Damien Cave and James Glanz, January 24, 2007, NY Times)

In the battle for Baghdad, Haifa Street has changed hands so often that it has taken on the feel of a no man's land, the deadly space between opposing trenches. On Wednesday, as American and Iraqi troops poured in, the street showed why it is such a sensitive gauge of an urban conflict marked by front lines that melt into confusion, enemies with no clear identity and allies who disappear or do not show up at all.

In a miniature version of the troop increase that the United States hopes will secure the city, American soldiers and armored vehicles raced onto Haifa Street before dawn to dislodge Sunni insurgents and Shiite militias who have been battling for a stretch of ragged slums and mostly abandoned high rises. But as the sun rose, many of the Iraqi Army units who were supposed to do the actual searches of the buildings did not arrive on time, forcing the Americans to start the job on their own.

Posted by Orrin Judd at January 25, 2007 7:53 AM