We have signed the agreement today," said Khalid al-Attiyah, the deputy parliamentary speaker from the main Shiite political bloc, United Iraqi Alliance.
Al-Attiyah said the cease-fire went into effect on Sunday and Iraqi forces will be allowed to enter the area as early as Wednesday and "take over the security there."
The statement said "the government will decide on the number of Iraqi forces to be deployed in Sadr City to achieve security, in order to refrain from asking help from foreign forces," a reference to the U.S. military.
"Any attack against residential areas, government offices and the Green Zone are prohibited from Sadr City or from another area," the agreement said.
The cease-fire stipulates that Iraqi forces have the right to "impose the law and to pursue illegal situations."
"No one and no side has the right to interfere in the work of these forces," it said, adding that the government retained the right to pursue "those who carried out armed attacks against the government."
Yet don't confuse getting out of the way with surrendering. The Sadrists are still there:
Sheik Salah al-Obeidi, an aide to al-Sadr, stressed that the Sadrists rejected conditions set by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to disband the Mahdi Army and hand over their weapons.
"We have agreed on cease-fire and to end displaying arms in public," al-Obeidi said. "But we did not agree on disbanding the Mahdi Army to hand over its weapons.
Short-term ceasefires that get the Sadrists out of the way while we continue the mission are no problem as long as we don't forget that in the end the Sadrists must be broken up.
Or do we want this in Iraq?
Heavy fighting broke out Monday between government supporters and opponents in Lebanon's second-largest city, where the two sides battled with rocket-propelled grenades, heavy machine guns and mortars, security officials and residents said.
Hizbollah, backed by Iran and Syria, is threatening the Lebanese state. It wasn't supposed to be this way, of course:
After the civil war ended in 1990, all of Lebanon's various militias surrendered their weapons and transformed into political parties, keeping only small arms. Only Hezbollah was allowed to keep its arms because it was considered a resistance movement battling Israel.
Yes, indeed. Who could disagree with "resisting" the Jews back then? And now Hizbollah seems to be more eager to fight Lebanese than Jews.
Do not let Sadr keep his militia. He may want to "resist" the Americans but in the end, backed by Iran, he will fight Iraqis.
Keep the mission in mind--defeat the pro-Iranian militias inside Iraq.
