This is a better than average article about the security situation in Iraq.
cnsnews.com
Former Baath Loyalists Likely Behind Iraq Attacks, Commander Says
By Lawrence Morahan
CNSNews.com Senior Staff Writer
October 27, 2003
(1st Add: Includes reaction by several analysts.)
(CNSNews.com) - Attacks in Baghdad over the weekend that left about 40 people dead and hundreds injured likely were the work of former Baath Party loyalists acting with militants from outside Iraq, the commander of the U.S. 4th Infantry Division said Monday.
Maj. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, speaking in a teleconference call from Tikrit, said a review of the intelligence suggested the attacks were the work of terrorists loyal to the deposed regime of Saddam Hussein.
"My initial feeling is, it's former regime loyalists doing this, maybe with minor coordination with a few people that might be not from Iraq originally," Odierno said.
On the first day of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, car bombers hit the International Red Cross headquarters and three police stations Monday, killing about 40 people and wounding more than 200 others.
One American soldier was killed in one of the police station attacks and six U.S. troops were wounded, military officials told reporters.
Monday's bombings came hours after clashes in the Baghdad area killed three U.S. soldiers and a day after militants fired a barrage of rocket propelled grenades at the Al Rasheed Hotel in downtown Baghdad, killing a U.S. lieutenant colonel and wounding 15 other people.
Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz was in the hotel, but was unhurt.
Wolfowitz told the American Forces Press Service the attack was the work of "a small number of bitter-enders," who think they can scare away the U.S. forces.
"They are not going to scare us away. We are going to get this job done despite the last desperate attacks of a dying regime of criminals," Wolfowitz said.
At an informal press briefing Monday, President Bush condemned the attacks and vowed the United States would not be intimidated "by these killers."
US successes force insurgents to change tactics
Recent intelligence reports indicate that the amounts of money offered to people willing to conduct attacks against U.S. forces has gone up, suggesting the elements coordinating the attacks are running out of people, Odierno said.
In recent months, the price for a successful attack on U.S. forces has increased from about $500 to between $3,000 and $5,000, Odierno said.
"We also believe that the price to convince people to move weapons around or to conduct any type of operation has gone up significantly," he said.
Recent successes by U.S. forces have depleted the pool of people willing to come forward, Odierno said. Operations against U.S. forces are becoming so expensive that the insurgents are being forced to change their techniques and go after soft civilian targets, such as the United Nations and the Red Cross, he added.
Better technology, not more soldiers, is the best means of reducing the terrorist threat, Odierno said.
"I'd like a technology that allows me to jam or prematurely explode these improvised explosive devices that we have being used against us," he said. "It would help us to protect the populace as well as our own soldiers."
Odierno said the quality of intelligence received by the coalition forces is steadily improving. The number of tips received "is probably 10 or 20-fold more than when we first started," he said.
"Even more importantly, it's more accurate human information. In fact our success rate is about 90 percent now accurate, where in the beginning it was 40 to 50 percent," he said.
Odierno acknowledged there are threats to Iraqis who come forward with information. However, "What's amazing to me is they continue to come forward, even after this intimidation has occurred, because they want to see Iraq move forward and they're very courageous people doing this."
About 95 percent of the forces opposed to the U.S. presence are former regime loyalists, Odierno estimated. A small number - from 2 to 5 percent - are foreign fighters.
"We've only really picked up a few of those - a couple from Syria, some Wahabists from other countries, but that's really been it. We've not seen a large influx of foreign fighters thus far," he said.
Odierno also said there was no evidence to suggest that former Baathists have allied themselves with Wahabists.
"Iraqis do not like people from other countries fooling in Iraqi business. They don't like Iranians here. They don't like Syrians here. They really like their own people being involved in this," he said.
Odierno declined to speculate on a specific time or on what it might take for the war on terrorism in Iraq to turn around.
"What I do know is with the people we're capturing and the information we're getting from them, we are clearly cutting into their ability to move forward, and I think that's why you see what you've seen in the last couple of days," he said.
"It appears to me they're getting more and more desperate," he said.
Attacks growing in frequency, sophistication
But analysts and military officials have noted that the attacks are becoming more frequent and more sophisticated in recent days.
Ted Galen Carpenter, vice president for defense and foreign policy studies with the Cato Institute, said he found the fact that insurgents have shifted from using small arms to mortars "a very worrisome development."
"In addition, the numbers don't lie,? Carpenter said. Last week, Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, said the number of attacks had increased from 10 to 12 a day in May and June to an average of between 25 and 35 a day now.
"If that is evidence of progress, I would hate to see what evidence of deterioration would look like,? Carpenter said.
Analysts said they did not see any particular event as one that could be identified as a turning point in the insurgency war in Iraq.
Getting Saddam would be a very important symbolic victory, Carpenter said, "but let's remember it wasn't that long ago that we got his two sons, and there were some who predicted that that would lead to a decline in the attacks on American military personnel. It didn't."
The United States should set a time limit - such as the first anniversary of the end of major hostilities in Iraq on May 1 of next year - to withdraw from Iraq, Carpenter said.
"The longer we stay, the more we're going to be seen as an occupying force and the more we're going to be targets for all sorts of disgruntled factions, not just Saddam loyalists,? Carpenter said.
Jack Spencer, a senior national security analyst with the Heritage Foundation, said he did not see the reports that both sides are claiming progress to be necessarily contradictory.
"Both sides perhaps are learning," Spencer said. "But I think that one side is gaining strength - the side of the coalition and of the Iraqi people. It doesn't mean that the dead-enders and the terrorists and those who would like to see democracy fail in Iraq aren't also learning, while their numbers may be dwindling.?
On some level, the insurgents are learning how to respond and react to the environment they find themselves in. "But they can do that while the other institutions of civil society are beginning to take root and grow in Iraq," Spencer said.
"These things are a process, and we really need to remain committed to it, and over time, the institutions of civic society will begin to take hold, and the Iraqis will be able to seek and destroy these pockets of resistance," Spencer added.
The attackers took advantage of an easing of security measures for Ramadan to fire the rockets at the Al Rasheed Hotel from multiple launchers hidden in a trailer disguised as a generator. Some 40 rockets, ignited by a timing device while the attackers fled, had been mounted in the ramps. But 11 failed to fire, officials said.
The Defense Department on Monday identified the dead soldier as Lt. Col. Charles H. Buehring, 40, of Fayetteville, N.C. Buehring was assigned to Army Central Command Headquarters (Forward) at Ft. McPherson, Ga. |
