Did you have any idea where Sadr was?

No. His location is a closely guarded secret. It's the one question you do not ask the Mahdi soldiers.

Were you able to talk to any of the Mahdi Army leadership? What were they saying about the truce?

Last night and today I did talk with a Mahdi leader, Sheikh Ahmed Shibany. He's one of Sadr's spokesmen, probably fourth or fifth down the organizational chain. It's a very small inner circle. He only would say that Sadr had sent a letter to the Iraqi government offering to lay down arms, vacate the shrine and become a political party. He said they were waiting for communication from the Iraqi government that they would agree to withdraw their forces to the original combat lines outside the medina.

Shibany is a very well-educated man, but it was really hard to get a clear response from him. I asked him repeatedly about the status of the negotiations -- Was he optimistic? Did he think they would fail? -- but he consistently responded in a vague and very robotic way. He said, "We made the offer but we don't trust the Americans." I was around him for the last three days and we were on good terms but he would never go beyond that discussion of the letter. When I would ask him, "What's going to happen tomorrow?" he would say "There could be intense fighting or there could be peace. I don't know."

What did you hear from the fighters themselves? Did any of them indicate they would lay down their arms and vacate the shrine?

The fighters don't know anything about a peace deal. I asked some of them if they would put down their arms if Sadr told them to, and they said, "Absolutely, he's the leader." But there's been no sign of that. A lot of fighters kept asking me, "Why does America hate poor people so much?" That was a common refrain.

I asked Shibany if there had been any cease-fire order given and he told me, "We only fire when we're fired upon." But that's not true. They do fire at American forces. They were fighting American forces this morning and this afternoon, and they'll be fighting tonight and tomorrow. My sense is there was never a cease-fire order given. That could change, but as of 4:30 Thursday afternoon, there were outgoing mortars -- not from the shrine itself but from buildings nearby. The fighting was continuing in the medina, and in the cemetery, which adjoins the mosque.

What has the rest of the media missed about this conflict?

I think a lot of the reporting on the Mahdi Army has been inaccurate -- and when I say that, I'm not endorsing the army, I'm just saying I think they've been really misunderstood. In some big publications they've been referred to as "rabble" or a "ragtag" group of fighters, and that's way off. They are guerrilla fighters, yes, but they are extremely disciplined and they are not ill-educated. A large majority of the cell leaders have college educations, usually with some kind of scientific or engineering training.

There was a lot made of this truce and they may still pull some kind of peace deal out of a hat. In Baghdad, you can get in a car and go into the Green Zone and cover whatever the Iraqi government is talking about; that's easy enough to do. I do think Sadr's peace offer in a letter exists. But I'm not optimistic. I don't think this peace is for real. The United States, which is the real power here, wants to disarm and destroy Muqtada al-Sadr. And they've already destroyed a chunk of Najaf.

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Read the rest of Phillip Robertson's dispatches from the front lines in Iraq here.

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