Surge In Iraq

The real surge in Iraq is not Bush's it is the in the civil war being conducted by the Iraqi Government and its allies, the Shia establishment, against fellow Shia and the Sunni's in their battle to take control of Baghdad. It is ethnic cleansing of areas where both Shia and Sunni's have lived together for years.

Iraqi Interior Ministry estimates 1000 killed in one week

The increase in internecine warfare has been aggravated by police and security units which are made up of religious zealots of both sects. So far since Bush announced his surge policy the result has been more deaths in Baghdad than ever before.

"The root causes of the sectarian violence lie in revenge killings and lack of accountability for past crimes as well as in the growing sense of impunity for on-going human rights violations," the UN report said.

That is the real surge. The ethnic cleansing of neighbourhoods before the US troops backing Shia government forces appear.

Soldiers say adding troops is lost cause

They cite the level of violence, lack of security or Iraqi support

Soldiers interviewed across east Baghdad, home to more than half the city's 8 million people, said the violence is so out of control that while a surge of 21,500 more American troops may momentarily suppress it, the notion that U.S. forces can bring lasting security to Iraq is misguided. Soldiers such as Hardy must contend not only with an escalating civil war between Iraq's Sunni and Shiite Muslims, but also with insurgents on both sides who target U.S. forces.

Officials estimate that 500,000 or more Iraqis have been forced into the limbo of displacement inside their country since February 2006, when the bombing of a Shiite shrine in the city of Samarra accelerated ongoing sectarian violence and localized ethnic cleansing.

The forced migrations are especially prevalent in Baghdad, a once-mixed city that is now fragmenting into segregated enclaves.

"Both (sects) are involved in the game," said Ali Shalan Mohan, a department director in the Iraqi government's Ministry of Displacement and Migration, who is himself displaced.

Iraqis are fleeing at a rate that could exceed 1,000 per day, according to some estimates.

In a country of about 26 million, more than 1.5 million people have been displaced, according to the International Organization for Migration, a Geneva-based group that counts displaced Iraqis in the central and southern portion of Iraq (not including the three Kurdish-run provinces). More than 1.2 million Iraqis, by most estimates, have fled Iraq to neighboring countries since 2003.

The Iraqi government reported a much higher count as of mid-January, saying 560,000 had fled their homes in 2006 — close to what the United Nations has estimated.

But Sunnis especially fear registering as displaced with a government that is dominated by Shiite parties with links to Shiite militias.

"People won't register with this government because they think the government is part of the displacement," said Samir al-Hayat, 30, from a mixed Sunni-Shiite family that is displaced yet unregistered.

The U.S. military has long suspected that Shiite militias in Baghdad are working systematically to cleanse neighborhoods.

Last summer, American troops in eastern Baghdad said Shiite gunmen were suspected of forcing mass evacuations of Sunni residents so they could give their homes to Shiites displaced from other areas of the city.

Mahdi Army gains strength by US aid

The U.S. military drive to train and equip Iraq's security forces has unwittingly strengthened anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army militia, which has been battling to take over much of the capital city as American forces are trying to secure it.

U.S. Army commanders and enlisted men who are patrolling east Baghdad, which is home to more than half the city's population and the front line of Sadr's campaign to drive rival Sunnis from their homes and neighborhoods, said Sadr's militias had heavily infiltrated the Iraqi police and army units that they've trained and armed.

Domestic Security Forces Face Major Challenges

Even after the Defense Department took over this training in 2004 and invested more resources, it was clear that the U.S. military did "not have the right experience or personnel to provide the unique training that the Iraqi Police Service needs."

On January 28, Diyala Governate police chief Ghanim al-Qureyshi announced that 1,500 local police officers had been dismissed for fleeing when the city of Ba'qubah was attacked by Sunni insurgents last November. He added that Ba'qubah Mayor Khalid al-Sinjari had been dismissed amid suspicions that he had collaborated with Sunni insurgents.

On January 20, armed gunmen attacked a Provincial Joint Coordination Center in the southern city of Karbala, resulting in the abductions and deaths of five U.S. soldiers. As details of the attack surfaced, U.S. officials reported that the attackers wore uniforms resembling those worn by U.S. forces and drove in vehicles commonly used by U.S. contractors.

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