Iraq Insurgency Larger Than Thought
The Associated Press
Friday 09 July 2004
Baghdad - Contrary to U.S. government claims, the insurgency in Iraq is led by
well-armed Sunnis angry about losing power, not foreign fighters, and is far larger
than previously thought, American military officials say.
The officials told The Associated Press the guerrillas can call on loyalists to
boost their forces to as high as 20,000 and have enough popular support among
nationalist Iraqis angered by the presence of U.S. troops that they cannot be
militarily defeated.
That number is far larger than the 5,000 guerrillas previously thought to be at
the insurgency's core. And some insurgents are highly specialized - one Baghdad cell,
for instance, has two leaders, one assassin, and two groups of bomb-makers.
Although U.S. military analysts disagree over the exact size, the insurgency is
believed to include dozens of regional cells, often led by tribal sheiks and inspired
by Sunni Muslim imams.
The developing intelligence picture of the insurgency contrasts with the commonly
stated view in the Bush administration that the fighting is fueled by foreign warriors
intent on creating an Islamic state.
"We're not at the forefront of a jihadist war here," said a U.S. military official
in Baghdad, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The military official, who has logged thousands of miles driving around Iraq to
meet with insurgents or their representatives, said a skillful Iraqi government could
co-opt some of the guerrillas and reconcile with the leaders instead of fighting them.
"I generally like a lot of these guys," he said. "We know who the key people are
in all the different cities, and generally how they operate. The problem is getting
actionable information so you can either attack them, arrest them or engage them."
Even as Iraqi leaders wrangle over the contentious issue of offering a broad
amnesty to guerrilla fighters, the new Iraqi military and intelligence corps have
begun gathering and sharing information on the insurgents with the U.S. military,
providing a sharper picture of a complex insurgency.
"Nobody knows about Iraqis and all the subtleties in culture, appearance, religion
and so forth better than Iraqis themselves," said U.S. Army Lt. Col. Daniel Baggio, a
military spokesman at Multinational Corps headquarters in Baghdad. "We're very
optimistic about the Iraqis' use of their own human intelligence to help root out
these insurgents."
The intelligence boost has allowed American pilots to bomb suspected insurgent
safe houses over the past two weeks, with Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi saying
Iraqis supplied information for at least one of those air strikes. But the better view
of the insurgency also contradicts much of the popular wisdom about it.
Estimates of the insurgents' manpower tend to be too low. Last week, a former
coalition official said 4,000 to 5,000 Baathists form the core of the insurgency, with
other attacks committed by a couple hundred supporters of Jordanian militant Abu Musab
al-Zarqawi and hundreds of other foreign fighters.
Anthony Cordesman, an Iraq analyst with the Center for Strategic and International
Studies, said the figure of 5,000 insurgents "was never more than a wag and is now
clearly ridiculous."
"Part-timers are difficult to count, but almost all insurgent movements depend on
cadres that are part-time and that can blend back into the population," he said.
U.S. military analysts disagree over the size of the insurgency, with estimates
running as high as 20,000 fighters when part-timers are added.
Ahmed Hashim, a professor at the U.S. Naval War College, said the higher numbers
squared with his findings in a study of the insurgency completed in Iraq.
One hint that the number is larger is the sheer volume of suspected insurgents -
22,000 - who have cycled through U.S.-run prisons. Most have been released. And in
April alone, U.S. forces killed as many as 4,000 people, the military official said,
including Sunni insurgents and Shiite militiamen fighting under the banner of a
radical cleric.
There has been no letup in attacks. On Thursday, insurgents detonated a car bomb
and then attacked a military headquarters in Samarra, a center of resistance in the
Sunni Triangle 60 miles north of the capital, killing five U.S. soldiers and one Iraqi
guardsman.
Guerrilla leaders come from various corners of Saddam's Baath Party, including
lawyers' groups, prominent families and especially from his Military Bureau, an
internal security arm used to purge enemies. They've formed dozens of cells.
U.S. military documents obtained by AP show a guerrilla band mounting attacks in
Baghdad that consists of two leaders, four sub-leaders and 30 members, broken down by
activity. There is a pair of financiers, two cells of car bomb-builders, an assassin,
separate teams launching mortar and rocket attacks, and others handling roadside bombs
and ambushes.
Most of the insurgents are fighting for a bigger role in a secular society, not a
Taliban-like Islamic state, the military official said. Almost all the guerrillas are
Iraqis, even those launching some of the devastating car bombings normally blamed on
foreigners - usually al-Zarqawi.
The official said many car bombings bore the "tradecraft" of Saddam's former
secret police and were aimed at intimidating Iraq's new security services.
Many in the U.S. intelligence community have been making similar points, but have
encountered political opposition from the Bush administration, a State Department
official in Washington said, also speaking on condition of anonymity.
Civilian analysts generally agreed, saying U.S. and Iraqi officials have long
overemphasized the roles of foreign fighters and Muslim extremists.
Such positions support the Bush administration's view that the insurgency is
linked to the war on terror. A closer examination paints most insurgents as secular
Iraqis angry at the presence of U.S. and other foreign troops.
"Too much U.S. analysis is fixated on terms like 'jihadist,' just as it almost
mindlessly tries to tie everything to (Osama) bin Laden," Cordesman said. "Every
public opinion poll in Iraq ... supports the nationalist character of what is
happening."
Many guerrillas are motivated by Islam in the same way religion motivates American
soldiers, who also tend to pray more when they're at war, the U.S. military official
said.
He said he met Tuesday with four tribal sheiks from Ramadi who "made very clear"
that they had no desire for an Islamic state, even though mosques are used as
insurgent sanctuaries and funding centers.
"'We're not a bunch of Talibans,"' he paraphrased the sheiks as saying.
At the orders of Gen. John Abizaid, the U.S. commander of Mideast operations, Army
analysts looked closely for evidence that Iraq's insurgency was adopting extreme
Islamist goals, the official said. Analysts learned that ridding Iraq of U.S. troops
was the motivator for most insurgents, not the formation of an Islamic state.
The officer said Iraq's insurgents have a big advantage over guerrillas elsewhere:
plenty of arms, money, and training. Iraq's lack of a national identity card system -
and guerrillas' refusal to plan attacks by easily intercepted telephone calls - makes
them difficult to track.
"They have learned a great deal over the last year, and with far more continuity
than the rotating U.S. forces and Iraqi security forces," Cordesman said of the
guerrillas. "They have learned to react very quickly and in ways our sensors and
standard tactics cannot easily deal with."
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In Place of Gunfire, a Rain of Rocks
By Scott Wilson
Washington Post
Friday 09 July 2004
U.S. troops in Sadr City struggle to help an angry, defiant populace.
Baghdad - Preparing for a morning patrol, Sgt. Adam Brantley surveyed his perch in
the gunner's nest of an armored Humvee. In front of him was a machine gun mounted on a
swivel. His M-4 rifle lay on the roof next to it.
Brantley stepped down and stooped in the dust, searching for rocks the size of
baseballs. He collected a few handfuls and piled them next to his rifle. His convoy
pulled into the smoky streets of Sadr City.
"I don't throw unless thrown upon," said Brantley, 24, who would have cause to do
so in the next few hours as rocks thrown from side streets banged against the Humvee.
In the context of Iraq's continuing violence, it is perhaps a measure of progress
that U.S. soldiers working in a slum on Baghdad's barren eastern edge are feeling the
sting of stones more often than bullets. Only weeks ago, U.S. soldiers were fighting -
and, in some cases, dying - to put down an armed Shiite uprising on the same streets.
But the daily rock fights between U.S. soldiers and ordinary Iraqis, many of them
children, highlight the mutual antipathy that has built up since the handover of
political power to an Iraqi government. Although often-intense fighting continues in
some regions, the U.S. military occupation of Sadr City, as observed in four days on
patrol with a U.S. Army unit, has evolved into a grinding daily confrontation between
frustrated American soldiers and a desperate population.
After 15 months of halting progress on U.S.-funded reconstruction projects, many
Iraqis who once supported the U.S. invasion are resisting the military occupation, a
fight that features gangs of impoverished children as an angry, exasperating vanguard.
The strain of the hostility on U.S. soldiers is palpable and poses huge risks to the
completion of millions of dollars in reconstruction work designed to help stabilize
Iraq.
In heat that hovers near 115 degrees, troops overseeing projects to bring clean
water to neighborhoods awash in raw sewage are greeted by jeering mobs. Swarms of
teenagers and children pump their fists in praise of Moqtada Sadr, the Shiite cleric
whose militia has killed eight soldiers and wounded scores more from the 1st Cavalry
Division battalion responsible for Sadr City's security and civic improvement. In
April, during an uprising in Sadr City, the division estimated that it killed hundreds
of Sadr's militiamen.
Candy, once gleefully accepted in this part of Baghdad, is now thrown back at the
soldiers dispensing it.
The military partnership with new Iraqi security forces appears to be foundering
on a mutual lack of respect. The Iraqi police occasionally ignore U.S. orders,
described as recommendations by U.S. commanders in the days since the handover, to
conduct night patrols in troublesome districts and prohibit Sadr's militants from
manning traffic checkpoints. The Iraqi National Guard has refused dangerous
assignments, even when accompanied by U.S. troops.
Lt. Col. Gary Volesky, commander of the division's 2nd Battalion, 5th Cavalry
Regiment of the 1st Brigade in Sadr City, said there was much to be done to
demonstrate to the Iraqi people that the Army has come to help them. "We've been here
a year and they haven't seen much progress," he said. "That's our challenge."
Volesky, an energetic commander admired by his troops, delivered that assessment
one recent morning from the roof of the Karama police station. Bombed by Sadr
militants in June, the two-story building appears at the moment to be defying gravity.
The facade lies in rubble, and the exposed second-story floor sags like an old
mattress.
Volesky was making a keep-your-chin-up visit, and the Iraqi police officers
appeared surprised to see him. They escorted him through the wreckage of the building,
which has no electricity and which his soldiers once took back from Sadr militants
after a fierce firefight. Then he headed to the roof.
Almost at once, rocks began falling around him, skittering across the rooftop. In
the distance, a young boy leaned back to throw again. But his stone fell short.
"You're going to need more than that," Volesky said to the boy.
"As you can see, this is not the friendliest neighborhood," he said. But he
noticed three men on a nearby street corner, gesturing for the rock throwers to leave.
"Thank you," Volesky shouted to them in Arabic. "Thank you very much."
Then he said, "Let's go talk to those guys."
As soon as Volesky left the ruined station, he was confronted by crowds of
children and a few men working in a strip of auto repair shops next door. They wanted
to know why their electricity was off more often than on, something U.S. soldiers
struggle to determine on a daily basis. Electricity in Baghdad's summer heat means air
conditioning, and a cooler population is a happier one.
"We've started fixing your sewers," said Volesky, who had just passed a pipeline
project that will pump some of the green sludge from the streets. "Soon you'll see it
coming this way."
The children gathered in a rowdy scrum around the soldiers. A chubby kid poked at
them, then opened his mouth to wiggle a very loose tooth in their faces. A gunshot
popped in the near distance, putting the soldiers on alert. A thin, dark child dressed
in filthy clothes began to chant, "Moqtada, Moqtada, let's go, let's go, Moqtada."
Others joined in, shuffling their feet in a two-step dance.
As the soldiers packed into Humvees and pulled away, stones clattered against the
armor.
"That's all you got, just those little pebbles," said a soldier driving one of the
Humvees.
Sgt. Timothy Kathol, 24, of Amarillo, Tex., handed a bag of lollipops up to the
gunner as the stones continued to rain down. "They throw rocks, we throw candy -
really hard candy," Kathol said. "With sticks in it."
Battle to Provide Basics
Sadr City, home to at least 2 million poor people, has been a miserable place for
decades. President Saddam Hussein's Sunni-led government deprived the Shiite
neighborhood, once a pocket of political resistance, of most basic services. Reliable
electricity, working sewers and clean drinking water have always been scarce.
When U.S. troops toppled Hussein last year, the neighborhood celebrated. But now
U.S. troops working to improve basic services appear to be bearing the blame for a
grim history. In their view, the people seem unwilling to help themselves.
"I love the smell of sewage in the morning," Kathol said as his Humvee left Camp
Eagle, the Army post on Sadr City's northern edge, and was engulfed by the slum's
signature stench.
"Smells like victory," replied Pfc. Joseph Crosier, 23, of Syracuse, N.Y.,
continuing the reference to a speech in the movie "Apocalypse Now."
In the movie, napalm smelled like victory. The smell in the Humvee was coming from
a large, swampy pond of sewage where people were bathing in the intensifying morning
heat.
In earlier years, roving animals were let loose on large piles of street-side
garbage. Today, sheep still graze on median-strip trash, and a hundred fires reduce
what remains into black, greasy piles, casting a hazy pall over the streets.
A couple of months ago, during the Sadr uprising, the battalion launched Operation
Iron Broom - a street-cleaning, garbage-collection program that cost several hundred
thousand dollars. It was carried out by U.S. soldiers at a time when their colleagues
were being wounded in the same streets by Sadr militants. After days of tedious work,
many of the streets were as clean as they'd ever been and large steel dumpsters dotted
the medians, soldiers recalled.
Within days, the dumpsters had disappeared. Neighborhood residents had cut off the
lids for use as garage doors. They sold the rest for scrap in ramshackle stalls piled
with mufflers, gas tanks and other debris. Soldiers have since helped build concrete
receptacles in the medians, but there is far more trash outside them than in. A public
awareness campaign on how to use them is being prepared.
"If they spent half as much time on trash cleanup and these projects as they do
trying to blow us up, this would all be fixed by now," said Crosier, who has been hit
by three roadside bombs and suffered severe burns.
Taking the Community Pulse
On a recent morning, Lt. Raymie Walters headed out with Alpha Company's 3rd
Platoon to take some popular soundings. The soldiers and the military intelligence
officers back at the post use a variety of unscientific methods to measure the
sentiments and general health of the community. Security, quite literally, has to do
with the price of eggs.
Walters, 26, of Longview, Wash., took a column of Humvees to a market to check on
food prices, which often fluctuate with insurgent activity. The convoy pulled up to a
stall and the soldiers got out. But they had no interpreter. After a few minutes of
holding up Iraqi dinars, pointing to produce and flapping like a chicken, Walters had
his price list.
The children emerged from nowhere. "Moqtada, Moqtada," they began taunting.
Staff Sgt. Matthew Mercado, 27, of Jonesboro, Ark., shook his head as the Humvees
pulled away. "You see what happens when we just ask for the price of a banana?" he
said.
The convoy sped down a wide avenue. Down small alleys, scurrying kids came into
view with rocks in their hands. A stone bounced short of the Humvee, leaping up to peg
the door. Walters told Mercado to radio the rest of the convoy with a warning for the
gunners to keep low.
That evening, U.S. commanders drew up plans for a foot patrol, matching a platoon
of U.S. soldiers with two squads of Iraqi National Guard troops. The mission entailed
setting up ambush positions along the road leading from camp into the center of Sadr
City, a route where roadside bombers frequently operate. There they would wait for the
men planting the explosives or flush them out by using illumination rounds to draw
fire. But the mission was delayed an hour, then canceled. U.S. commanders said the
Iraqi troops refused to participate.
"They don't want to work," said Lt. Derek Johnson, 25, of Driggs, Idaho. "But they
still want our money."
Johnson, commander of Alpha Company's 1st Platoon, had a long morning ahead of him
the next day policing the police. As Bradley Fighting Vehicles and Humvees idled, he
and his men waited for 15 Iraqi soldiers to join the patrol, then waited even longer
for a "psy ops" team with anti-Sadr pamphlets to hand out.
The Iraqi soldiers piled into two Bradleys, carrying AK-47 assault rifles and
wearing new body-armor vests. They took turns tapping each other on the chest plates
as they waited to leave.
Johnson's task was to make sure the Iraqi police had set up checkpoints in
designated spots and were manning them without help from Sadr's Mahdi Army militia or
any other civilians. The first intersection was empty of police, and the second was
being worked by a group of men wearing matching blue-and-white soccer jerseys. They
had whistles. The drivers obeyed them. But they were not the police - who sat inside
their station a block away - and were likely Sadr militants.
"We're from the neighborhood," said one sweaty man in a Tommy Gear cap.
"According to their interim government, it's not allowed for any uniformed
personnel other than Iraqi police to man these checkpoints," Johnson warned through an
interpreter. "I'll be coming back here, and I don't want to see them."
Johnson did return a few hours later. The men had not left.
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