The Fight For Basra - It's About Oil And Power

[Purveyor]

Cairo - US forces in Iraq are in danger of being drawn deeper into the power struggle between the country's Shiite factions.

During the most recent clashes between Iraqi troops and the militia of Shiite preacher Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army, the US army may not have been in the teeth of the fighting. But does take action in case of emergencies, when Iraqi troops risk defeat.

Yet over the past months the US military command stressed it was 'respecting the ceasefire announced by Moqtada al-Sadr'. The fact that US troops are fighting the Mahdi Army despite those assurances pose great risks, independent analysts say.

The rivalries between the Shiite government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and the Mahdi Army are not just about differing ideologies or handing out lucrative posts in state and administration.

First and foremost, they are about dividing the legal and illegal profits stemming from the oil business in the southern city of Basra.

---EOE---

http://news.monstersandcritics.com/middleeast/features/article_1397326.php/The_fight_for_Basra_-_its_about_oil_and_power

[JDPriestly]

1. And Basra was supposed to be pro-American/British and anti-Saddam

Either times have changed or the lies of 2003 are getting too obvious to bother to hide.

Report from 2003

British troops effectively moved into Basra yesterday when they occupied a technical school that had been transformed into a military base.

As a small harbinger of what may be to come, a man appeared at the side of the road and waved frantically at a passing military vehicle. The 34-year-old Iraqi planted a bristly kiss on the cheek of Flt Lt Ritchie Wylor-Owen of the RAF Regiment when he realised that his surrender had been accepted.

An Iraqi soldier kisses Flt Lt Ritchie Wylor-Owen

He wore the red beret and wings of an airborne unit and said he was an officer. He claimed to have been in prison in Baghdad for desertion when he was offered his freedom in return for going to the front. He took the first opportunity to escape and had been searching for days for coalition troops to whom he could give himself up.

As he drank bottled water and ate pate and chocolate from a ration pack, he cursed Saddam and the Ba'ath Party and said that every regular soldier would give himself up if he could. Then he lifted his shirt to show a glimpse of the reality of life under the regime he had fled.
more http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/04/04/wbasra04.xml

October 1, 2007 -- less than a year ago, Reuters UK reported:

BASRA, Iraq (Reuters) - Residents of Iraq's southern city of Basra have begun strolling riverfront streets again after four years of fear, their city much quieter since British troops withdrew from the grand Saddam Hussein-era Basra Palace.

Political assassinations and sectarian violence continue, some city officials say, but on a much smaller scale than at any time since British troops moved into the city after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.

Mortar rounds, rockets and small arms fire crashed almost daily into the palace, making life hazardous for British and Iraqis alike in Iraq's second-largest city. To many Basrans the withdrawal of the British a month ago removed a proven target.

"The situation these days is better. We were living in hell ... the area is calm since their withdrawal," said housewife Khairiya Salman, who lives near the palace.
more
http://uk.reuters.com/article/email/idUKYAT72246420071001

November 15, 2007, International Herald Tribune

Attacks against British and Iraqi forces have plunged by 90 percent in southern Iraq since London withdrew its troops from the main city of Basra, the commander of British forces there said Thursday.

The presence of British forces in downtown Basra, Iraq's second-largest city, was the single largest instigator of violence, Maj. Gen. Graham Binns told reporters Thursday on a visit to Baghdad's Green Zone.

more http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/11/15/africa/ME-GEN-Iraq-Basra.php

[AntiFascist]

2. McCain et al linking Iraqi violence to al Qaeda is a great deception....

they aren't fighting because they hate 'us' for our freedom, they are fighting over the oil revenues, pure and simple.

[slipslidingaway]

3. Thanks K&R n/t