From Holden:

This can’t be a good sign:

Last night Iraqi police ordered all journalists to leave Najaf. Four police cars surrounded a hotel where journalists were staying and presented the order, signed by Najaf’s police chief, Brigadier Ghalib al-Jazaari, the Associated Press news agency reported. Police said reporters who remained would be arrested, journalists said.

What is it that they don’t want the world to see? An assault on the Imam Ali shrine perhaps?

Meanwhile, Sen. Richard Lugar is encouraging Iraqi PM Allawi to wipe out Muqtada al Sadr’s militia, while Sen. Joe Biden is encouraging Iraqi forces to attack the Imam Ali shrine instead of US troops leading the assault.

If Biden thinks that Shi’ite Muslims will forgive desecration of the most holy place as long as the hands firing the bullets belong to Iraqis he’s sadly mistaken. Allawi is a US puppet, there is no distinction in the Islamic world between what he does and what US forces do.