[Blitzer:] To our viewers, you're in THE SITUATION ROOM, where new pictures and information are arriving all the time. Happening now, the new top U.S. military commander for Iraq expected to land in Baghdad next week. No exact date given yet for the arrival of Lieutenant General soon to be General David Petraeus. But it's likely to coincide with Congressional debate on resolutions opposing the deployment of additional U.S. troops to Iraq. Also, the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, promising quick action on a Bush administration request for an extra $10 billion for reconstruction in Afghanistan. Pelosi led a Congressional delegation that met with the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, in Kabul yesterday, following trips to Pakistan and Iraq. And a Senate panel holding hearings on Hurricane Katrina recovery. Among those testifying, the New Orleans mayor, Ray Nagin, saying his city is getting shortchanged when compared to the money being spent on Iraq. And he adds, and I'm quoting now, "There's racial issues associated with it." I'm Wolf Blitzer. You're in THE SITUATION ROOM. Let's go back to our top story. A bloody battle as Iraqi forces with lots of U.S. help defeat diehards from a Messianic cult. By holding the line, did Iraq's new military head off a regional holy war? Standing by in New York is the "New York Times" bureau chief in Baghdad, John Burns. But let's get the latest from our senior Pentagon correspondent, Jamie McIntyre Jamie.
[Jamie Mcintyre, Cnn Senior Pentagon Correspondent:] Wolf, you know, the U.S. fights to portray the enemy in Iraq as a combination of disaffected Baathists and foreign terrorists. But Iraqi officials say this time the enemy was a combination of both Sunni and Shia extremists, as well as some various fringe splinter groups.
[Mcintyre:] Najaf was the biggest battle yet for Iraq's much maligned military. More than a day of fierce fighting with fanatical insurgents described by Iraqis as cult-like religious extremists. When the haze of battle cleared, the U.S. had lost two soldiers in a helicopter crash. But at least 100, perhaps more than 200, insurgents were dead. While the Iraqi forces had taken the lead in Najaf, in the end, it took U.S. firepower and air support to finish the battle. The U.S. military issued a statement quoting former top spokesman and now division commander, Brigadier General Vince Brookes as saying: "This is an example of a promise kept. Everything worked just as it should h." The U.S. argues this is the model for the future Iraqi troops out front, with the U.S. backing them up only when needed.
[Sean Mccormack, State Department Spokesman:] It is certainly very positive when you see the Iraqis on the point. That is what they want. That is certainly what we are looking for, as well.
[Mcintyre:] The U.S. believes the Iraqi offensive thwarted a diabolical plot in which hundreds of gunmen would disguise themselves as pilgrims and murder clerics on the holiest day of the year, including perhaps the assassination of Grand Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani, something experts say could have only made things far worse.
[Kenneth Pollack, Saban Center For Middle East Policy:] It was Ayatollah Sistani consistently saying to the Shia, do not fight the Americans, do not fight the reconstruction, this is what we want, this is how we are going to have a better future that has been critical in whatever success we have had in Iraq so far. Without Al-Sistani, things might have fallen apart even sooner than they already are.
[Mcintyre:] One thing this battle seems to show, Wolf, is that what Iraq is facing has clearly gone beyond an insurgency into what military experts increasingly agree is an all out civil war Wolf.
[Blitzer:] Jamie, thanks for that. Iraqi and U.S. forces in that pitched battle with an end of days cult. What would have happened if the plot had succeeded? Joining us now, John Burns, the veteran Baghdad bureau chief for the "New York Times," a Pulitzer Prize winner a few times. John, thanks very much for coming in. I think it's fair to say that if they would have killed the Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani, who knows what would have happened in Iraq? What's happening today would look like child's play compared to the devastation. What do you think would have happened?
[John Burns, "new York Times":] I think that the rage amongst Shiites would have been very hard to control. Remember, it's barely a year ago that the attack on the Shiite shrine in Samarra set off a wave of sectarian killing, which has overwhelmed the insurgency in terms of the numbers of lives it's been taking. So it would have been extremely serious indeed.
[Blitzer:] Well, I want you to elaborate a little bit. You say extremely serious. Elaborate. Walk us through that scenario, because potentially the ayatollah could be vulnerable.
[Burns:] He could be vulnerable. And, of course, it's been thought up until now that Najaf was one of those places which was relatively secured. It's a place where we at "The New York Times" send our correspondents down there, we're a good deal less worried than we are in many other places in Iraq. This obviously makes us think again, but it does sounds a little generous. It's difficult to see this kind of situation being replicated. We haven't seen it before, Shiite militants, religious extremists from a messianic cult. This could be a kind of one-off situation. We'd have to hope it was. I think one of the very worrying factors was the helicopter. We've seen a number of U.S. military helicopters come down, as you know, and this is a helicopter war. And if if the insurgents, the militants are getting more effective at shooting down helicopters, that introduces an entirely new challenge.
[Blitzer:] Because there have been, you point out, three U.S. choppers that have gone down in the past week alone a Black Hawk helicopter with 12 soldiers, then a private contractor, an American contractor's helicopter, and now this helicopter that was shut don over the weekend in this battle for Najaf. What you're saying is, if these insurgents master these shoulder-fired missiles, or whatever they're using to bring down these helicopter, then it's a whole new ballgame as well?
[Burns:] Well, let's not forget, Wolf, that it was the success of the Mujahadin in Afghanistan learning to shoot down Soviet helicopters which which marked a major turning point in that war. We'll have to hope that we're not seeing the same thing happening in Iraq, but I have oftentimes asked American commanders while traveling with them in Black Hawks across the deserts of Iraq, usually at about 50 feet, at very high rate of knots, how it is that not more helicopters are not shot down. And their answer has usually been that they thank God that the Iraqi insurgents have not learned to be more effective in shooting at helicopters. It's not an easy thing to do, but if they are learning to be more effective, then we could see another deterioration in this war.
[Blitzer:] What do you make of this latest development involving Iran, a double-pronged event, in effect? The first part, the U.S. acknowledging there's a kill order to any Iranian agents who may be attempting to do ill will in Iraq right now, and now the Iranian ambassador of Baghdad telling your newspaper, "The New York Times," that they're ready to open up a bank, increase commerce, increase security cooperation. What's going on?
[Burns:] Very hard to tell. I think that it's something that completely perplexes American intelligence agencies and the U.S. military command in Iraq is exactly what Iran is up to. Sometimes they speak of Iran having several governments or several agencies with different agendas, because on its face, undermining, as they have done, the security of the Shiite-led government of Iraq seems like a counterintuitive thing for the Shiite religious government of Iran to do. But they seem to be transfixed with the notion of the "Great Satan." More concerned to make things more difficult for the United States than they are to make things better for the government that they themselves support in Baghdad.
[Blitzer:] Who has more influence in Iraq right now? The United States or Iran?
[Burns:] Oh, I don't think there's much doubt about that. I think that the United States still has a decisive influence in Iran [sic]. And I think that the government of Iraq has probably turned something of a corner in the last few weeks, especially since the midterm elections here, in realizing that, number one, how dependent they are on American military and political support. And number two, how easily they could lose that support if they do not rise up, if you will, to become the kind of partner that the Bush administration has said they want..
[Blitzer:] But amongst the rank and file Shiite who represent about 60 percent of the country, Iraqi Shia, who is more popular? The Iranians or the United States?
[Burns:] You know, I don't think that the Iranians are that popular. You have to remember that Iraqi Shiites are overwhelmingly Arabs. The Iran-Iraq war, eight years in the 1980s, most of the soldiers that Saddam sent to the front were Shiites who fought a very, very tough, very bloody war with their fellow Iranian Shiites. Now, they were doing that under compulsion, but my sense is that the vast majority of Shiites in Iraq are not in love with Ayatollah Khamenei, and they're not in love with the kind of government that Ayatollah Khamenei and Ayatollah Khomeini before him brought to the Iran. And they are very well, very keenly aware of the sovereignty of Iraq and what they stand to lose by becoming a client state of Iran. So I think there are very early limits to Iranian influence, at least as far as popular opinion amongst Shiites in Iraq are concerned.
[Blitzer:] All right. That's good to know. Thanks very much. John Burns, joining us from New York. John writes for "The New York Times." Up ahead, two potential presidential rivals coming together in Texas. We're going to take you there live and show you what senators John McCain and Hillary Clinton are up to on this day. And if Hillary Clinton does try to become the next president and all indications are she will what role will the former president, her husband, actually play? Stay with us. You're in THE SITUATION ROOM.