CIA report minimizes Baathist-Zarqawi ties

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

"Going to War with the Army You Have"
Why the U.S. Cannot Correct Its Military Blunders in Iraq
By Michael Schwartz

The Latest American Theory about the Iraqi Resistance

In early February, a Newsweek team led by Rod Nordland produced a detailed 
account of current theorizing among American and Iraqi officials about the 
structure of the Iraqi resistance.

Here, in brief, is what these officials told Newsweek: The initial American 
assault on Iraq was so successful that Saddam Hussein's plan for systematic 
resistance fell apart almost immediately, leaving a dispersed, unruly 
guerrilla movement with little or no coherent leadership. In the two 
subsequent years, however, the Saddamists formed a wealthy and savvy 
leadership group in Syria. In the meantime Abu Massab al-Zarqawi, the 
Jordanian terrorist with ties to Al Qaeda, asserted his domination over the 
on-the-ground resistance. Pressure from recent American offensives drove 
the two groupings into an increasingly comfortable alliance. Here is how 
Newsweek described developments since last summer, based on an interview 
with Barham Salih, the Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister:

    "According to Salih, ?The Baathists regrouped and, in the last six or 
seven months, reorganized. Plus they had significant amounts of money, in 
Iraq and in Syria.' Those contacts and networks that Saddam's key cronies 
began developing months before the invasion now paid off. An understanding 
was found with the Islamic fanatics, and the well-funded Baathists appear 
to have made Syria a protected base of operations. ?The Iraqi resistance is 
a monster with its head in Syria and its body in Iraq' is the colorful 
description given by a top Iraqi police official?. Zarqawi's people supply 
the bombers, the Baathists provide the money and strategy."

The current situation was succinctly summarized for Newsweek by Brig. Gen. 
Hussein Ali Kamal, the Deputy Minister of the Interior: "Now between the 
Zarqawi group and the Baathists there is full cooperation and coordination."

This portrait has been further fleshed out in other accounts, including a 
New York Times report in which U.S. Commanding General George W. Casey 
declared that the Baath Party in Syria was "providing direction and 
financing for the insurgency in Iraq."

This new theory about the nature of the Iraqi resistance helps to 
illuminate the renewed saber-rattling against the Syrians, which began even 
before the assassination of the former Lebanese Prime Minister. On January 
25, for example, former Secretaries of State Henry Kissinger and George 
Shultz, writing together for the first time, made the connection explicit 
in a Washington Post op-ed. They asserted that the Bush administration must 
have a "strategy for eliminating the sanctuaries in Syria and Iran from 
which the enemy can be instructed, supplied, and given refuge in time to 
regroup." The new theory may also help to explain why (according to such 
diverse sources as Newsweek and former U.S. weapons inspector Scott Ritter) 
the U.S. is considering using assassination squads to eliminate enemies. 
One whole category of targets for these squads (if formed) would certainly 
be the Syrian-based leadership of the resistance.

And then, at the end of February, came news of the first fruits of American 
operations based on this new insight, the capture in Syria of Sabawi 
Ibrahim Hassan, a half brother and political lieutenant of Saddam, and one 
of only 11 of the original "deck of cards" Saddamist leaders who still 
remained at large. The capture vindicated the saber-rattling as well, since 
high level Iraqi officials told reporters on February 28 that the "capture 
was a goodwill gesture by the Syrians to show that they are cooperating" 
with the new American campaign to decapitate the insurgency by removing its 
Syrian-based leadership.

The New Theory Is Probably Not Accurate

This new portrait of the Iraqi resistance may be an accurate description of 
one aspect of the ongoing war; and its key new element -- a working 
alliance between Saddamist exiles and Zarqawi's fighters inside Iraq -- may 
be an important new development. But the foundation upon which these 
descriptions are built -- that these forces now dominate the resistance, 
supply its leadership, or provide the bulk of its resources -- is likely to 
prove profoundly inaccurate.

This is most easily seen by consulting -- of all sources -- the CIA, which 
issued a contrary report about the time the Newsweek article appeared. 
According to the CIA, the Zarqawi faction and his Saddamist allies were 
"lesser elements" in the resistance, which was increasingly dominated by 
"newly radicalized Sunni Iraqis, nationalists offended by the occupying 
force, and others disenchanted by the economic turmoil and destruction 
caused by the fighting." There is, in fact, a vast body of publicly 
available evidence in support of the CIA's perspective, including, for 
example, most first-hand accounts of the resistance in Falluja and other 
cities in the Sunni triangle.

full: http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=2241


Louis Proyect
Marxism list: www.marxmail.org