al-Sadr warns of violence if US troops don't go

From Reuters.com

By Muhanad Mohammed

BAGHDAD | Sat Apr 9, 2011 1:28pm EDT

(Reuters) - Iraq's fiery anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr will "escalate military resistance" and unleash his Mehdi Army militia if U.S. troops fail to leave Iraq as scheduled this year, his aides said on Saturday.

On the 8th anniversary of the day U.S. forces toppled Saddam Hussein's statue in Baghdad, senior Sadr aide Hazem al-Araji told tens of thousands of followers: "We say to the Black House (White House), 'we are all time bombs and the detonators are at the hands of Moqtada al-Sadr.' American troops must definitely leave our lands."

Men, women and children -- many waving Iraq's black, white and red flag or singing songs -- gathered in Baghdad's Mustansiriya square to mark the occasion. The mood was festive, and vendors milled around, selling ice cream, water and juice.

Some of the followers carried signs reading "Occupiers Out" and "No to America." Others burned U.S., Israeli and British flags, or draped white funeral shrouds over their shoulders -- signifying they were willing to die for their beliefs.

As the crowd cheered wildly, spokesman Salah al-Ubaidi read out a speech from the influential Shi'ite cleric, warning an extension of the U.S. "occupation" would have two consequences.

"First, the escalation of military resistance work and the withdrawal of the order freezing the Mehdi Army, in a new statement issued later. Second, escalation of peaceful and public resistance through sit-ins and protests, to say that the people want the exit of the occupation," he said.

Sadr is currently in Iran, a source close to him said.

The warning came after visiting U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates pressed the Iraqi government to decide if it wanted U.S. troops to stay on and help fend off a festering insurgency.

Ali Mohammed, a 39-year-old government employee at the protest who had wrapped an Iraqi flag around his head, said a delayed withdrawal would trigger extraordinary violence.

"They must understand that our resistance now is peaceful, but it will turn into actions beyond imagination," he said.

Some 47,000 remaining forces are scheduled to leave by year's end under a security agreement between the two countries.

Gates says some troops may remain in Iraq for years

in The New York Times online

by Elisabeth Bumiller Published April 8, 2011

Mosul, Iraq -- Some American troops could stay in Iraq for years, well beyond the scheduled withdrawal of all United State forces at the end of 2011, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said on Friday.

In remarks to American soldiers in Mosul, north of Baghdad, Mr. Gates said that the United States and Iraq would have to negotiate the terms of any American presence in the country beyond this year. But he held out the possibility that it could happen, or at least that he had been thinking of several scenarios that might keep American forces in Iraq, perhaps indefinitely.

READ MORE HERE...

But what Sec. Gates doesn't realize, is that Jeremiah prophesied 2,600 years ago that the occupiers would abandon Chaldea out of frustration that reconstruction had failed, after the cities burn and all their efforts are wasted -- "'I shall set fire to his cities, and it will devour all his environs'... 'We applied healing to Babylon, but she was not healed; forsake her and let us each go to his own country, for her judgment has reached to heaven'... So the peoples toil for nothing, and the nations become exhausted (because of the) fire..." (Jer 50:32; 51:9,58).