{"id":241,"date":"2007-02-08T12:44:19","date_gmt":"2007-02-08T17:44:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/?p=241"},"modified":"2007-02-08T12:44:19","modified_gmt":"2007-02-08T17:44:19","slug":"rogue-jam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/?p=241","title":{"rendered":"Rogue JAM"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><meta http-equiv=\"Content-Language\" content=\"en-us\" \/> <meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=windows-1252\" \/><title>One day after the official<\/title>One day after the official &#8220;launch&#8221; of the Baghdad surge and crackdown, here  come the (earliest and totally preliminary) answers to the <a href=\"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/?p=240\">questions about US policy  in Iraq<\/a>:<\/p>\n<p>Target #1: &#8220;Rogue&#8221; elements of Moqtada al-Sadr&#8217;s Shiite Mahdi Army.\u00c2\u00a0 <a href=\"http:\/\/today.reuters.com\/news\/articlenews.aspx?type=topNews&#038;storyid=2007-02-08T152119Z_01_L2828035_RTRUKOC_0_US-IRAQ2.xml&#038;src=rss\"> Reuters<\/a> has the details:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>U.S. and Iraqi forces detained Iraq&#8217;s deputy health minister on Thursday,  \ta senior member of a radical Shi&#8217;ite political group, in the first major  \tsign that a security crackdown in Baghdad was under way.<\/p>\n<p>The U.S. military, without naming anyone, said a senior Health Ministry  \tofficial had been detained on suspicion of infiltrating rogue members of  \tanti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr&#8217;s Mehdi Army militia into the ministry.<\/p>\n<p>Ministry officials and witnesses said <strong>deputy Health Minister Hakim  \tZamili, from Sadr&#8217;s movement<\/strong>, was detained during the raid by U.S. and  \tIraqi forces on the Health Ministry in Baghdad.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;He is suspected of funding <strong>rogue JAM<\/strong> through large-scale  \temployment of militia members,&#8221; a U.S. military statement said, using the  \tacronym for the militia.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/news.bbc.co.uk\/2\/hi\/middle_east\/6341321.stm\">BBC<\/a> even has  Zamili&#8217;s picture.<\/p>\n<p>So, if this is &#8220;rogue&#8221; rage, where is the &#8220;official&#8221; Sadrist movement?<\/p>\n<p>Here is the <em> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ft.com\/cms\/s\/0104721c-b76e-11db-bfb3-0000779e2340.html\"> Financial Times<\/a><\/em> on that rather urgent question:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>Last August<\/strong>, <strong>this correspondent observed US troops<\/strong> search  \tone of the [health] complex\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s buildings and <strong>arrest guards<\/strong> whom they  \tbelieved may have hidden kidnap victims inside.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Later<\/strong> in the nearby battalion headquarters, <strong>the Iraqi commander  \tto whom the captives had been transferred was besieged by phone calls from  \this superiors demanding the men be let go<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>Sadrists say that <strong>Mr Sadr himself has directed his followers not to  \tconfront the US military or the Iraqi government<\/strong>, although <strong>this  \tpolicy may be tested by such a high-profile arrest<\/strong>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p align=\"left\">Right.\u00c2\u00a0 So, <a href=\"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/?p=228\">has Sadr been coopted<\/a>  by the Cheney crowd?\u00c2\u00a0 Or is he simply lying low.\u00c2\u00a0 Is the US moving  ahead with a pre-approved program of helping Sadr gain control of his own  &#8220;unruly&#8221; rank and file?\u00c2\u00a0 Or is the US <em>spoiling for a fight<\/em> with Sadr, using this high-profile arrest to draw the  Sadrists into a confrontation?<\/p>\n<blockquote><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One day after the officialOne day after the official &#8220;launch&#8221; of the Baghdad surge and crackdown, here come the (earliest and totally preliminary) answers to the questions about US policy in Iraq: Target #1: &#8220;Rogue&#8221; elements of Moqtada al-Sadr&#8217;s Shiite Mahdi Army.\u00c2\u00a0 Reuters has the details: U.S. and Iraqi forces detained Iraq&#8217;s deputy health minister [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=241"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}