Maliki forces being routed by Mahdi

In both Basra and Baghdad, the BushCo myth of “Iraqis standing up” is showing itself to be amongst the more vapid of his long list of brainlocked ideas. In battles between the Iraqi army militia of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and elements of the Mahdi Army of Moqtada al-Sadr, government forces are turning tail and running.

Some government forces have defected. The Basra police chief was almost assassinated. In Baghdad, Mahdi forces simply took over neighborhoods by ordering police to leave their checkpoints, which many of them did.

One witness saw Iraqi Shia policemen rip off their uniform shirts and run for shelter with local Sunni neighbourhood patrols, most of them made up of former insurgents wooed by the US military into fighting al-Qaeda.

Other southern Iraq cities besides Basra, like Kut, are starting to fall under Mahdi control.

It’s no wonder that retiring Nebraska Sen. Chuck Hagel called President bush’s latest detached from reality speech on Iraq “another episode of ‘Alice in Wonderland’” (with video clip).