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Iraqi Insurgents Are Surprisingly Cohesive, Armitage Says
Officials in the State and Defense departments told senators yesterday that they know relatively little about the enemy in Iraq but they believe thousands of hidden fighters are more organized than previously thought and are likely to continue deadly attacks in coming weeks and months.
| If they know "little," as opposed to "relatively little," they should give us a call... |
Admitting that U.S. officials have underestimated the insurgency, Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage told the Senate Armed Services Committee that a series of attacks across Iraq in recent days indicate that the attackers have a "central nervous system" that is showing increased coordination and effectiveness.
| We coulda told them that last year... |
While the U.S. military expects heightened violence as Iraq approaches the transfer of limited power to an interim government next week, the sophistication of recent attacks has come as a bit of a surprise, according to testimony yesterday... But what was previously envisioned as a faltering insurgency has evolved into a significant security problem and a largely unknown quantity.
| Zarqawi's got an operation that spans continents and he has tight ties to Iran and to al-Qaeda, as well as to Hezbollah and Chechnya. How unknown is that? It's all documented, open source... |
Armitage said he expects those who carried out recent attacks to "reload and try again," predicting they will "really exercise themselves" in coming months.
The enemy is now using car bombs and more conventional warfare in targeting government officials and the new Iraqi police force, and senators heard yesterday that well-financed extremist leaders appear to be recruiting unemployed young men with the promise of a paycheck. Officials said yesterday that some of the ongoing attacks appear to be organized out of Fallujah, where officials believe extremists are hiding amid civilians.
Wolfowitz should be fired-on the spot. One year after the war and he canât answer who the enemy is, the numbers of enemies, where they are coming from. Wolfowitz is a failure and has no business being in the Defense Dept. Perhaps he can find a job in the Las Vegas casinos or as a stock trader where guessing is exceptable. Who is going to re-elect George Bush when his architect of the Iraq war, Wolfowitz, cannot even cough up a deadline for withdrawal of troops? Indefinitely is the only answer that his muddled brain can come up with??? Wrongo, bucko, back to the drawing board.
| We don't have a deadline for withdrawal of troops from Europe yet. We don't have one for withdrawal of troops from Korea yet. We don't have one for withdrawal from Japan yet. And it's Armitage speaking, not Wolfowitz. My guess is that there are dozens, maybe hundreds of Bad Boy groups that provide cannon fodder for Zarqawi's core. Up until Sammy was captured I think there were multiple cores and since then they've been coalescing. Tater tried to establish his own core, and the Medes and the Persians let him give it a try, even though they've got to know he's a loose cannon. I'm surprised that SCIRI seems to have turned into a relatively reasonable political organization, though that might have something to do with the assassination of Hakim last year. If Armitage doesn't know this then there's something dreadfully wrong. I don't think Armitage is saying what he knows, either. |
Posted by: rex 2004-06-26 |
