"The development comes alongside the disclosure that up to 1,500 Iraqi soldiers refused to fight, or deserted in the operation against the radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's Shia militia. The numbers, according to Iraqi and American sources, included dozens of officers and at least two senior field commanders. Iraqi officials said that Colonel Rahim Jabbar and Lieutenant Colonel Shakir Khalaf, a brigade commander and his deputy, have been suspended for declining to fight."