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).

U.S. already active in British portion of Iraq?

So it would seem, if we’re down near Basra:

In what appeared to be a separate operation deep in the south near the Iranian border, a ferocious battle between American troops and Shiite militants left at least 20 people dead and wounded scores more, Iraqi and American officials said.

The clashes, in Amara and Majjar al-Kabir, a pair of mostly Shiite towns just north of Basra, started early Monday. They were sparked by raids on what American officials described as a secret network involved in transporting “lethal aid” from Iran to Iraq, particularly deadly roadside bombs known as explosively formed penetrators, or E.F.P.’s.

Lt. Col. Christopher Garver, an American military spokesman in Iraq, said American troops have intensified their focus on finding and dismantling places where those weapons are built, like the towns raided Monday, because the weapons were especially hard to stop at the border. “It’s hard to catch because they are shipped as components, not completed weapons,” he said.

According to officials aligned with the Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr in Basra, the fighting involved members of Mr. Sadr’s Mahdi Army militia. The battle appeared to be the largest clash with Mr. Sadr’s loosely affiliated gunmen since the start of the new American security plan in February.

In addition to the 20 dead, six suspects were wounded and one was detained, officials said. A hospital official said that at least 60 people were wounded.

So, is British control slipping? Is the heat picking up in the south? And, if soon-to-be British PM Gordon Brown does go through with a British drawdown, how do we fill the gap?

Gen. Petraeus ain’t talking about this one, at least not in public.

I would say it would necessitate a minimum of 20,000 additional troops.