The death toll in taking down the Mehdi Militia in Baghdad’s Sadr city slum is climbing. We only get an overall death toll from the Ministry of the Interior here so it’s hard to tell how many militia members are being killed. Today they said 20 people had been killed, 87 wounded, among them women and children. 
 
That’s going to be a problem because the Mehdi Militia will say the civilians are being targeted by US and Iraq troops. Although it’s a blatant lie, it is incredibly frustrating for American commanders. Iraqi government officials tell us when they try to take humanitarian aid in to neighborhoods worst affected by the fighting, militia men attack them and scare residents away from getting help.

The information war is a very hard one to win….
A government minister tells me Moqtada al Sadr, who leads the Mehdi militia, has created a culture of victimization among the 2.5 million people in Sadr city. He’s creating another Hezbollah, a state within a state, with its own army. By keeping humanitarian aid away, by telling people that  they are mistreated by the government,  and that they lack proper water and electricity supplies, he is drawing support to himself.

Now Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has thrown the gauntlet down to Sadr by fighting the Mehdi militia in an attempt to disarm it. Some leaders around him wonder if he has a clear strategy to take on a problem as big as Sadr City, an enormous poor, frustrated and dangerous slum.  
 
There is no going back. But without a good plan, defeating the Mehdi militia on their home turf in Sadr city is going to be very, very tough. Iraqi officials I’ve been talking to expect the crackdown to escalate but fear the Prime Minister’s desire to have Iraqi troops front and center in the fight could damage his chance of victory. The Prime Minister, they say, wants Iraqis to defeat the Mehdi militia, not US troops. It’s a noble aspiration they say but the Iraqi army is just not that capable right now. He needs American fighting power and a better plan.

Without addressing these issues, the fear of some senior Iraqi officials is the Prime Minister could be blundering in to a public relations nightmare. And that nightmare could bring him down and waste recent gains towards stability… Not to mention help set Moqtada al Sadr on track to becoming Iraq’s Hassan Nasrallah.
 
- Nic Robertson, Senior International Correspondent
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