by James Glaser
December 14, 2005

Col. Joseph DiSalvo, commander of the U.S. Army's 3rd Infantry Division in eastern Baghdad, says, "Sadr City is probably our most secure zone because of the de facto militia presence." The Mahdi militia does neighborhood patrols in that part of Baghdad.

DiSalvo said it would be all but impossible for the American military to defeat the militias in Iraq. He also said, "The coalition forces cannot enforce it (the law forbidding militias). We cannot negate the militias. It would be like having a 2 million-man tribe, and all of a sudden saying, 'Tribe. You do not exist'," "You'd have to have more manpower than is feasible."

Tom Lasseter, of Knight Ridder Newspapers, reports "The Iranian-backed militia the Badr Organization has taken over many of the Iraqi Interior Ministry's intelligence activities and infiltrated its elite commando units, US and Iraqi officials said."

He goes on to explain that the Shiite Muslim militia can now use Interior Ministry vehicles and equipment—much of it bought with American money.

There is a lot of military training going on in Iraq and it isn't just our troops training a new Iraqi Army. Every faction has their own armies. The Shiite has the Iranian backed Badr Organization. These troops were formed and trained in Iran. The Kurds have had their own forces long before we set up shop in Iraq, and they fought Saddam for years. The Sunni have their troops too.

That is why there is so much talk of a civil war starting up in Iraq. When we finally get an American trained Iraqi army set up, they will be joining the three armies that already exist in Iraq. All three of these militia groups are active now. The prisons that Americans have liberated in the last couple of weeks have been run by the Badr militia, and they had been torturing Sunnis there.

Because Iranian militia trained troops have infiltrated the Iraqi government, hundreds of Sunnis have been taken away by troops wearing Interior Ministry uniforms and those taken away have been found dead or stuck in private prisons.

Like Col. DiSalvo said, we don't have the will or the manpower to disband the militia groups in Iraq, which almost guarantees a civil war starting up when ever we leave. We can not build an Iraqi army big enough to take on these armed groups and we now admit that the army we are training is already infiltrated by these groups.

Iran may come out as the big winner in this war. They have the troops they trained already in place in Iraq. They have many of "their people" in the Iraqi government, and all they have to do is wait for us to leave. It might be next year or a decade from now, it really doesn't matter. Four trained armies in one country can only lead to some sort of a civil war. Iran may turn out to be the big winner in our war on Terrorism.

Iran could very well get all the oil in the south of Iraq, and the Kurds the oil in the north. The Sunnis would be stuck in the middle with nothing, and will continue to fight. Nobody in Washington was thinking when we got into this mess and I don't think there is a good way out now, nor will there ever be one.