Anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr said Saturday his followers in Iraq were still resisting the U.S. "enemy" with all means, including military. But he tempered his fiery words by saying the new Iraqi government should be given a chance to get American forces out of the country in a "suitable" way.
In his first speech since returning from almost four years of self-imposed exile in Iran, the 37-year-old cleric whose Shiite militias once ruthlessly pursued U.S. troops and terrorized Iraqi Sunnis stopped short of explicitly urging violence against Americans. But he left open the possibility that some 50,000 U.S. troops set to leave Iraq at the end of this year could be targeted.
This man will not stop trying to kill our people and reverse the gains we've made in Iraq. We keep beating him down yet never finish him off. How he has managed to elude a hangman's noose or a JDAM astounds me. He deserves death many times over.
Mark my words, Sadr will cease to be a potentially lethal problem for us and Iraq only when he is cold, still, and very quiet.
