The number of Iraqi insurgents is falling and the days of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the head of the al Qaeda-related militants, are numbered, the top U.S. commander in the Middle East said on Tuesday.Army Gen. John Abizaid, head of U.S. Central Command, told the Senate Armed Services Committee he believed the emerging political process, including the Jan. 30 election, was helping to drive the number of militants down.
Insurgent attacks on U.S. forces and particularly on Iraqi police and security forces have continued. On Monday a car bomber killed 125 people in Hilla, south of Baghdad and the al Qaeda-related group claimed responsibility.
But Abizaid said improved Iraqi intelligence sources and "treason within his own organization" had lead to successes against Zarqawi. "And his days in Iraq are numbered," he said.
Abizaid said no more than 3,500 militants took part in a failed attempt to disrupt the Jan. 30 election, when Iraqis defied the risks and voted in large numbers.
U.S. officials have rarely given estimates of the numbers involved in the insurgency that arose after U.S.-led forces ousted President Saddam Hussein in 2003 and they have fluctuated greatly, ranging as high as 20,000.
Abizaid said there was "no doubt that the Sunni Arab insurgency in Iraq was stronger" during the three months before the January election than the same period a year earlier.
But he said U.S. experts calculated that the insurgency fielded "around 3,500 or so" fighters on election day — "the single most important day for the insurgents to come out in force and to disrupt."
"And we say to ourselves, 'Why didn't they put more people in the field? Where were they?' They threw their whole force at us, we think, and yet they were unable to disrupt the elections because people wanted to vote," Abizaid said.
He did not explicitly cite 3,500 as a comprehensive assessment of rebel strength, and said "there's probably a lot of room for interpretation in the numbers of the insurgency."
"I think that the voting in Iraq, the political process that's going on in Iraq, the fact that people of moderate disposition have a chance for a better future, have driven those numbers down," Abizaid said.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other Pentagon officials recently declined to give lawmakers an estimate of the number of rebels. Rumsfeld said on Feb. 16 he lacked confidence in estimates by the CIA and the Pentagon's own Defense Intelligence Agency.
Abizaid said the Syrian government's role in the infiltration of militants into Iraq was unclear, and it appeared Damascus had taken some steps against it.
"I cannot tell you that the level of infiltration has decreased. I can tell you there appears to be some change of attitude. But I would characterize Syria as continuing to be very unhelpful in helping Iraq achieve stability," he said.