More news on Iraq's emergence as a prime terrorist training ground; the "terrorist West Point" as some have editorialized. This from the CSMonitor today:
Australian Broadcasting Corporation Online reporter Edmund Roy reports that the development of Iraq as a training ground for terrorists was something that the US and its allies had hoped to avoid. Two decades ago Afghanistan became the magnet for Islamic militants, who later on became the Al Qaeda network operating under the protection of the Taliban. While the Afghan operation was largely fought on a rural battlefield, the CIA report says that Iraq is now providing extremists with more comprehensive skills, including training in operations devised for populated urban areas. Thus bombings, assassinations and conventional military attacks on police and military targets have increased with deadly effect, but the White House isn't quite ready to admit to anything just yet. Mr. Roy also reports that American military officers in Iraq have told him
that "the gearing up of a competent new Iraqi military is at least five to
10 years off. And that really is a figure that is just put forward because
no one quite knows."
...and this:
While the Guardian reports that Britain's Foreign Office and Security Service doubt there will be much "spillover" to other countries, the one country that might face a problem is Saudi Arabia. If there was to be a spill-over, Saudi Arabia is potentially vulnerable
because many of the Arab fighters in Iraq originate from there. Jamal
Khashoggi, media adviser to the Saudi ambassador in London, said yesterday he agreed in part with the US assessment.
"It will be worse than Afghanistan," he said. "We are talking about a very brutal type, a very weird version of Islam in Iraq. It is very scary."
Newsweek reports that the insurgents' "most powerful weapon" is their vast network of spies and infiltrators. One of the biggest areas of concern is that the new Iraq army may have hundreds of "ghost soldiers" - enlistees who show up irregularly, just enough to keep up connections but are actually working for the insurgents. The US had originally set up a system to screen them out, but it ran into problems. ... with pressure on to find an exit strategy for Iraq – and to build significant Iraqi forces fast – a lot of doubtful characters seem to have slipped through the cracks. Gaps in the process were quickly exploited in a strategic campaign of infiltration by the insurgency.
This is progress? I'd hate to sound a defeatist tone, because I think there is merit to the argument that it does us no good to practically declare defeat in the face of a determined enemy, but at what point do we stop talking defeatism and start talking realism in this never-ending war? And at what point must we start questioning the basic, core competancy of the administration that's in charge of it? Theys seem to have learned nothing from the decade-long Soviet-Afghan war, which is the closest analogy to what we're doing in Iraq (as opposed to Vietnam, where we were intervening essentially in a civil war). And they themselves admit that despite our best efforts, the insurgency isn't weakening, as Dick Cheney so foolishly asserted, it's getting stronger... |
