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| Iraq-Jordan |
| Ex-CPA official sees no dent in insurgency |
| 2004-07-02 |
| More than a year of intensive efforts by the American military and the Central Intelligence Agency to destroy the insurgency in Iraq has failed to reduce the number of ``hard-core Saddamists’’ seeking to destroy the interim Iraqi government, a former senior official of the just-dissolved American-led occupation authority said in an interview on Thursday. The senior official, speaking with a small group of reporters near the White House, said he was repeatedly ``disappointed we haven’t had better insight into the command and control of the insurgents.’’ The official was touching on one of the continuing mysteries of the insurgency: how has a relatively small rebel force organized, and how can it be broken? In recent days, other officials have offered varying assessments on this question. Last Friday, Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage, speaking at a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said: ``Someone’s giving general orders, and other people are following them. I think that’s clear.’’ But Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said a few minutes later that ``whether it’s a central nervous system or some other form of coordination’’ was an open question and that ``the intelligence community, as far as I know, will not tell you, will not give you an answer, because they can’t give me an answer.’’ On Thursday, the former senior occupation official estimated that the number of insurgents had stayed constant at 4,000 to 5,000, suggesting that as soon as they are killed or captured, they have been replaced. ``I have seen no evidence that the number has changed,’’ he said, adding that ``the intelligence on this stuff is not as good as it should be.’’ Moreover, said the former senior official, who has spent more than a year in Iraq and had access to the highest-level intelligence, American officials had found it ``almost impossible to penetrate’’ the network organized by the Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who is believed responsible for many of the suicide bombings that have killed both American troops and Iraqis. The official also said that over the last year, both Iran and Syria had stepped up their activity in Iraq, and that the Iranians might have been financing Moktada al-Sadr, the young radical cleric whom the Bush administration first promised to capture or kill, then decided had to be spared to avoid urban warfare in Najaf, his stronghold. The Iranians have ``become more active over time, and not helpful,’’ the official said, though he said intelligence indicated that far more foreign fighters were coming over the border from Syria than from Iran. On Thursday in Washington, Mr. Bremer ticked off a series of economic reforms that he enacted before leaving Baghdad: balanced budgets - a contrast, he acknowledged with a grin, to the deficits run by the United States - a new currency and openness to foreign investment. Yet the insurgency, Mr. Bremer said, ``will be very hard to root out,’’ and ``stopping corruption is going to take time.’’ But he concluded: ``Can they get security enough under control to hold that credible elections will be held in January? I believe they can.’’ The former senior occupation official, speaking in Washington on condition of anonymity at the request of the White House, described a situation in which efforts to cut off the influx of foreign terrorists entering Iraq had been only partly successful. He said that the Syrian border ``was the most important one where foreigners were coming in, and terrorists,’’ but that the number could not be reliably quantified. The captured fighters were ``mostly Syrian - there were Sudanese, Yemenis, some Saudis and then the odd Egyptian and Moroccan.’’ Many of the foreign fighters had contacts both with former Hussein forces, he said, and with Mr. Zarqawi’s network, but it was unclear who was coordinating their entry, if anyone. He appeared less concerned about the appeal of the Zarqawi fighters, who he said were reviled in much of Iraq. The Hussein insurgents are a more significant threat, he said, in part because they are supported by an outer ring of ``less hard-core’’ supporters, including teenagers and others paid to shoot rocket-propelled grenades at passing American troops. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |
| #7 "the number of insurgents had stayed constant at 4,000 to 5,000, suggesting that as soon as they are killed or captured, they have been replaced." Hmmm. Sure, you can "replace" people at the level of "day laborer," the guy who gets $150 to play lookout for an ambush. But by definition -- at least for Iraqis and not foreigners -- the "hard core" was what they started with in April '03, and it can't have expanded, nor can it really be replaced, since then. The Wash Post used to (maybe still doesn, haven't looked at the dead-tree version in years) publish a "murder map" which dramatically illustrated how concentrated the city's famous homicides were in a few areas of town. A similar up-to-date map showing "insurgent" attacks, and especially one discriminating between suicide bombings and more conventional types of attacks, throughout Iraq would be most interesting. We all know it would show perhaps 90% of attacks confined to a few parts of Baghdad and of course the Triangle. Sounds easy for me to say, but I don't see the mystery at breaking the domestic insurgency -- in fact we're doing most of the right things already. It just takes time. I think there might have been a much harsher "stick" element to the carrot-and-stick in the Triangle, plus especially (even today) extensive restrictions on transportation (these guys and arms and bombs aren't walking anywhere, they're being driven). But that's based on the limited view one has, depending on poor media coverage and limited direct info from forces in the field. On the positive side, a friend who's in the flow of info said there was an immediate and noticeable uptick in cooperation by Iraqis following the hand-over on Monday. If Allawi continues to show a savvy touch, I'm tempted to be quite optimistic -- of course using reasonable and historically literate benchmarks, not NYT silliness. |
| Posted by: Verlaine 2004-07-02 1:38:00 PM |
| #6 It seems to me iffin' a former spook/state fella really believed that our efforts in Iraq had no effect, they would come out to say it. There are benefits to doing so: 1) If indeed it turns out to be so, the official can say with a good deal of confidence he/she was merely speaking in the nation's best interests by pointing out an element in this war overlooked. 2) The publication you are speaking to can't be accused of pushing an agenda, so the next time you speak, you can have as much credibility as before. Let's face it folks. There are no amount of US/coalition/allied casualties/deaths/murders so great, the NY Times will not publish defeatist 'news' stories such as this. And there is a great supply of ex-CIA and ex-State folks ( as well as current CIA and State ) who have been affected by the Bush administration push to actually protect the USA, rather than continue overlooking terrorist attacks; all of these brave folks unwilling to have their name published through fear that the USA will actually be a safer place and their 'knowledge' be challenged in a real world situtation. |
| Posted by: badanov 2004-07-02 12:02:47 PM |
| #5 Border control. Iraq and America have the same problem. I'm thinking moats, What about swine manure laid thickly around the borders of Iraq, except where there are border check points? |
| Posted by: rex 2004-07-02 11:31:09 AM |
| #4 The former senior occupation official, speaking in Washington on condition of anonymity at the request of the White House, It would appear that in this instance it's the White House that has requested the senior officer withold his name. |
| Posted by: rex 2004-07-02 11:28:43 AM |
| #3 It's awe inspiring. They have letters from our enemies saying they're being constricted and they're losing and yet they continue to babble this rubbish. Impressive display stupidity in the face of facts. |
| Posted by: Damn_Proud_American 2004-07-02 10:37:41 AM |
| #2 Amen, Frank. Border control. Iraq and America have the same problem. I'm thinking moats, friendship fences, mebbe double-walls 50-100 yds apart full of pit vipers and camel spiders, remote-controlled machine guns with IR / CCD cameras, blimps, UAV's, and Zero Tolerance, myself. |
| Posted by: .com 2004-07-02 10:37:03 AM |
| #1 another unnamed senior official. Does the NY Times have ANY named sources for their spin stories? From the paper that had Blair on its payroll |
| Posted by: Frank G 2004-07-02 9:42:02 AM |