Muqtada al-Sadr's militia defeats Iraqi military forces and takes Ad-Diwaniya

The powerful (take an old Middle East hand for it!) Muqtada al-Sadr's militia has taken the initiative and cruelly attacked and chased the US-trained Iraqi forces out of a key city in Iraq. Al-Sadr (left) is another radical Shiite Muslim (remember the Hezbollah a month ago?) who has a militia that many are comparing with Hezbollah.

Yes, we (the US military) could move into Ad-Diwaniya and chase the Shiite killers out, but that would increase American casualties and President Bush doesn't want that (neither do I!) in the two month period before the Midterm Elections. Besides, the militia knows how to "vaporize" into the surrounding region and we would capture or kill very few, I suspect. This exact scenario was played out by the Royal Saudi Air Force with senior ground force leaders as early as about ten years ago.

Mr. Bush, America (our forces there first, but all of us!) and the new Iraq Government are clearly between the rock and the hard place. To rub sand in the eyes of the new Government in Iraq, al-Sadr's militia executed several of the Iraqi soldiers in the public square. Al-Sadr is an evil animal who can not be trusted, but whose "faction" is a part of the very Iraqi Government which he is slaughtering.

The downhill slide in Iraq continues ...