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Iraq has been a Quagmire for Al Qaida
An opinion piece in the Pittsburgh Post-GazetteJack Kelly: Quagmire for al-Qaida Terrorists are feeling the heat in Iraq Sunday, July 31, 2005 ....except in news reports, the war in Iraq has been going poorly for al-Qaida. Retired Gen. Jack Keane, former vice chief of staff of the Army, said in a speech July 25 that so far this year, U.S. and Iraqi security forces have killed or captured more than 50,000 insurgents... While the majority of these have to be people who were interviewed and released, that's still an impressive total. Car bombings, al-Qaida's specialty, have fallen from (a record high of) 170 in April to 151 in May to 133 in June, with less than 100 so far in July. (Journalists describe this as a "worsening" trend.) Al-Qaida could be storing up for an offensive when the new Iraqi constitution is unveiled next month. We'll know soon enough. The targets have shifted in emphasis from American forces to Iraqi forces to Shiite civilians to, most recently, Sunni Arabs who are cooperating with the government.... Of course if Al Queda is perceived as losing in Iraq, the collateral damage to Move-on, the DU, Howard Dean will be considerable. There will be many sad faces in the faculty lounge at UC Berkeley. Posted by: mhw 2005-08-01 |
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