The Iraqi people: undefeated

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

Eperts Question Depth of Victory
Attacks Indicate Baath Party Is Not Cowed

By Thomas E. Ricks
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, June 27, 2003; Page A20

The wave of more sophisticated attacks on U.S. troops and civilian
occupation forces in Iraq is raising new worries among military experts
that the 21-day war that ended in April was an incomplete victory that
defeated Saddam Hussein's military but not his Baath political party.

Neutralizing Baathist resistance is proving to be a more difficult job
than the Pentagon calculated, and the continuing violence is becoming an
embarrassment, one U.S. official in Baghdad said.

A Special Operations soldier was killed by hostile fire in the southwest
part of Baghdad yesterday. In another ambush, a Chevrolet Suburban
belonging to the U.S. civilian occupation authority was hit by a
rocket-propelled grenade while en route to the Baghdad airport. Army
Humvees have been attacked on that road before, but this apparently was
the first time a civilian vehicle had been hit, indicating a new form of
targeting in anti-American attacks.

Two U.S. soldiers also may have been abducted in Baghdad. In addition,
Iraqis cooperating with the U.S. authorities, such as two electrical
workers who were killed by a bomb yesterday, are now being attacked
following weeks of threats by Iraqi opposition groups that they would be
targets.

Those actions came on top of Wednesday's mob violence that killed six
British troops in southern Iraq, the Shiite-dominated area that until
this week generally had been considered quiet and portrayed by Pentagon
officials as a success story.

Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz said the trend in Iraq is
still good and should not be seen through the lens of one day's events.
"The direction is pretty clear," he said in a telephone interview. "It
is toward a more secure Iraq," in which the Baathist position is
weakening and basic services are being restored.

Wolfowitz did not foresee any major changes in the U.S. military posture
in response to the attacks. "I think that the basic approach that the
military is using is a sound approach," Wolfowitz said.

But experts on Iraq responded to the attacks with new concern about the
trend of events.

"I thought we were holding our own until this week, and now I'm not
sure," said retired Air Force Col. Richard M. Atchison, a former
intelligence officer for the Central Command, the U.S. military
headquarters for the Middle East. "If we don't get this operation moving
soon, the opposition will continue to grow, and we will have a much
larger problem."

Jeffrey White, a former Defense Intelligence Agency expert on Arab
military issues, said, "There are a lot of worrisome aspects about the
current situation. Resistance is spreading geographically, resistance
groups seem to be proliferating in Sunni areas, resistance elements
appear to be tactically adaptive, resistance elements appear to be drawn
from multiple elements of Sunni society, our operations inevitably
create animosity by inflicting civilian casualties, disrupting lives,
humiliating people and damaging property."

Because the war was so narrowly focused on Hussein's government in
Baghdad, a large part of the Iraqi population does not feel as if it was
defeated, said retired Army Col. Scott R. Feil. "As I heard one Iraqi
say, the Americans defeated Saddam, but not the Iraqi people, so the
psychology of the loser is not present," he said.

full: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A37747-2003Jun26.html

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