Pat Dollard

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This from Iraq’s only real news agency, Voices Of Iraq. And as Maliki’s middle name has become Al Backdowner ( He Who Backs Down ) things are looking right now. Interesting note, an anti-Bush Time magazine Baghdad staffer has been desperately trying to paint this as a victory for Al Sadr, with at least one article entitled “Al Sadr wins another round”. The article is too gay and ridiculous for me to even get in to, but you I just wanted to bring to your attention, that the media remains as corrupt and full of open lies as possible. I put up AP and other such stories here, because amongst the the propaganda there are significant facts worth knowing, and as Bill Maher is fond of saying, “I have the smartest audience in the world”, and I trust you guys to be able to read between the lines, and then at times point their out in the comments section. Unlike O’Reilly, I want my readers to bloviate.

Baghdad, May 15, (VOI) – A significant clam prevailed last night and on Thursday morning over Sadr City in eastern Baghdad, the Baghdad’s operations command said, while eyewitnesses said that gunmen removed bombs they had planted to prevent Iraqi and U.S. forces from plunging into the city.

“Sadr City witnessed last night and this morning a significant calm, as only one incident was registered when unknown gunmen shot a citizen,” Brig. General Qassem Atta, the official spokesman for the Baghdad’s operations command, told Aswat al-Iraq – Voices of Iraq – (VOI).

Sadr City, a stronghold of Sadr’s Mahdi Army militias, has been witnessing armed clashes since Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki announced last March the commencement of a security operation codenamed Saulat al-Forsan (Knights’ Assault) in the port city of Basra, Iraq’s second largest province and an oil-hub, 590 km south of Baghdad, which he said targeted “outlaws.”

Hundreds of Sadr supporters were killed or wounded in intense fighting, which still continues.

Tension between the government and the Sadrist bloc increased when Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki demanded to solve al-Mahdi army, otherwise the Sadrists will not be allowed to take part in the provincial councils elections, scheduled later this year, however Muqtada al-Sadr rejected the demand. But the Unified Iraqi Coalition and the Sadrist bloc announced last Sunday a truce agreement to end all armed forms in the city and to admit that the Iraqi government is the only body which runs the security file.

“Baghdad’ operations command waits for “brothers” in the Sadrist bloc to take preparations for the entry of the security forces to lift bombs planted in the streets and impose security and stability,” Atta said.

Eyewitnesses said that gunmen in the last night and today morning city lifted landmines and bombs, which they planted to prevent forces from entering the city.

Other witnesses said that all armed forms disappeared from the city’s streets and neighborhoods, while cam prevailed last night and this morning.
The VOI correspondent noted that normal life started to return to the city and stores seems more active.

The Sadrists have 30 seats in the Iraqi parliament. They entered it as part of the UIC, a coalition of Shiite parties that include the Dawa Party, to which Maliki belongs, and the SIIC.

They broke away from the UIC and became an independent bloc, withdrawing its six ministers from the government last year, brining the UIC to have only 83 seats, fifteen of which are occupied by the Dawa Party.