Where is Sadr's army

LA Times:

Seven weeks into the U.S.-led security crackdown in Baghdad, leaders of the Al Mahdi militia of Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada Sadr acknowledge that their fighters are chafing under orders to freeze operations, and worry they could lose control of the sprawling organization.

Some members have defected to armed groups that have no intention of calling a cease-fire. Commanders have gone underground, leaving a leadership void as U.S. forces arrest members in raids. Some commanders have fled to Iran and others to southern Iraq. Rumors abound about the location of Sadr.

Senior leaders of Sadr's movement also worry openly that Iran has started to recruit Al Mahdi fighters to possibly confront U.S. forces in Iraq.

Sadr's movement is part of the U.S.-backed government, but now American and Iraqi officials face the danger that the Al Mahdi militia may splinter into dozens of armed groups no longer under a national command.

"If he is off the political scene, then we have a problem because you have to deal with several groups with unknown affiliations and agendas," said Laith Kubba, a senior director at the Washington-based National Endowment for Democracy and a onetime spokesman for former Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim Jafari. "There is nothing binding them but Muqtada Sadr."

...

"Soon fighters might stop listening to their orders to stay quiet," said Abu Ferras Mutarri, the movement's political chief in Sadr City, the capital's Shiite slum. "If this deterioration continues, it will snowball."

From the beginning, a mix of religious figures, tribal leaders and street toughs competed to advance themselves under the Sadr banner, and the cleric struggled to impose his authority on the unruly movement.

Rifts have deepened in recent months. Beset by allegations that runaway elements were killing Sunnis indiscriminately, Sadr started to fire renegade members in October. Since then, insubordinate members have been punished and even executed, members say.

So far, however, the punitive measures have failed to instill new discipline in the ranks.

In fact, commanders now wonder how to put the brakes on reputed efforts by Iran to lure away members and manipulate the militia into confronting the United States inside Iraq. Iranians fear America may strike their country militarily because the Shiite regime in Tehran has resisted pressure to back down on its nuclear program.

...

Sadr's "restraint" is based on the knowledge and experience of the fact that his forces would lose in any confrontation with US forces and the surge would make that unavoidable if his forces tried to exert themselves. He is like a batter laying off a low fastball on the outside corner of the plate, he knows he can't do anything with it. But the lack of action is damaging his unit cohesion.

The organization is rapidly deteriorating, and the LA Times attempt to put lipstick on that pig is not going to change the fact that Sadr's influence is waning and that is a good thing, because it allows the Iraqi government to take over security in the Shia areas. That is what the surge was supposed to do and it appears to be working.