A ‘Minor Cleric,’ or a Martyr

In seeking the arrest of radical Iraqi cleric Muqtader Sadr, the Bush administration is gambling that the Shiite leader still has a limited following that can be neutralized without disrupting U.S. plans to hand sovereignty over to a fledgling Iraqi government in three months.

The U.S.-led coalition has avoided confrontation with Sadr for 10 months, preferring to try to isolate him politically. But Sadr’s faction has attracted new support, and he has turned to more confrontational tactics. So rather than allow his organization to gain momentum and possibly undermine the interim government that is to take power in July, the administration has concluded that it needs to deal with him now, U.S. officials say.

The interim government may be especially vulnerable to disruption as it seeks to begin operations and organize elections, U.S. officials and experts say. And because the core of Sadr’s support is in the slums of the capital, that could make him a special threat, they say.

But despite the U.S. confidence that Sadr is only a “relatively minor cleric,” in the words of one official, it is difficult to anticipate the Iraqi public’s reaction to any American move against him.

Sadr has increased his following as unhappiness with the occupation has grown, and he could come to be seen as a martyr, even by Iraqis who have not so far been sympathetic to him, analysts say.

The timing of a warrant issued for his arrest could also be provocative, coming just before the start of the Islamic holy day of Arbain at the end of the week, when many Iraqis might react strongly to any perceived attack on a religious figure.

Coalition military authorities have warned that they would use whatever force they felt was necessary to reign in Sadr’s militia after the clashes with the group known as the Al Mahdi army killed eight U.S. troops in Baghdad on Sunday. One Pentagon official said Monday the plan was to “take them apart.”

Rachel Bronson, director of Middle East studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, said the Americans’ gamble that Sadr has only limited support is “a reasonable bet.”

She noted that Sadr had been able to turn out crowds of no more than a few thousand in the streets, whereas mainstream Shiite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani has brought out more than 100,000.

But Bronson acknowledged that Iraqis’ dissatisfaction with the occupation makes it hard to gauge what the reaction to the American challenge could be.

“The feelings are such now that these things are less predictable than you would like,” she said.

Because so many of Sadr’s followers are in a Baghdad slum called Sadr City, a military action there could disintegrate into the kind of slaughter that occurred when U.S. forces were ambushed trying to arrest a warlord in Mogadishu, Somalia, in 1993, she said. Eighteen U.S. troops and special forces personnel, and hundreds of Somalis, were killed in that battle.

U.S. officials say they are aware of such sensitivities and have tried to avoid arousing them until now. An official of the U.S. Central Command, which is responsible for military operations in Iraq, said Monday that “the last thing we want to do is go into a mosque and take significant actions in there.”

Until this month, Sadr had called only for nonviolent resistance, stopping short of urging attacks against U.S. troops. But on Sunday, he abruptly changed course, telling followers that the nonviolent approach had been unproductive and urging them to “terrorize your enemy.”

Sadr also began trying to broaden his appeal to Iraqis, claiming Friday that he was allying himself with Hamas and Hezbollah, Palestinian and Lebanese militant groups listed as terrorist organizations by the U.S. The Al Mahdi army claims 10,000 fighters, but some analysts say the figure is one-third that or less.

An ABC News poll in February found that only 1% of Iraqis named Sadr the national leader they trusted most.

But analysts also say the coalition’s shutdown of a Sadr-backed newspaper late last month, and the killings of four U.S. contract security officers in Fallouja last week by insurgents, appears to have galvanized support for Sadr’s calls for violent resistance.

U.S. officials say they have little choice but to go after Sadr. One Pentagon official said that by calling for Iraqis to “terrorize” the occupiers, “he’s crossed the line from democratic free speech to inciting violence.”

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Times staff writers Alissa J. Rubin in Baghdad and John Hendren in Washington contributed to this report.

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In stories after April 9, 2004, Shiite cleric Muqtader Sadr is correctly referred to as Muqtada Sadr.

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