BAGHDAD, Oct. 15, 2007
Al Qaeda In Iraq Defeated?
Military Tells Washington Post Group May Be Beaten, Intel Experts Not So Confident
-
-
A U.S. soldier stands guard as Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, unseen, meets with tribal leaders about 20 miles south of Baghdad, Oct. 15, 2007. Gen. Petraeus paid a visit to the village to laud the concerned citizens who have formed to secure the restive area. (AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo)
-
Iraqi civilians inspect damaged vehicles at the scene where a car bomb exploded at Eden Square, northwestern Baghdad, Iraq, Sunday, Oct. 14, 2007. A car bomb parked near a minibus exploded Sunday, killing nine people, including three women and two boys waiting for a ride to a Shiite shrine in Baghdad, a police officer said. (AP Photo/Khalid Mohammed)
-
-
Play CBS Video Video Iraq Denounces Blackwater USA Following an investigation into a recent shootout that left 17 civilians dead in Baghdad, the Iraqi government is demanding compensation from security firm Blackwater USA. Liz Palmer reports.
-
Video Insider's View Of Blackwater "Only On The Web": Kelly Capeheart is a former employee of Blackwater, a private security firm in Iraq. Capeheart says he's standing by the firm, because it has been unfairly portrayed in the media.
-
Interactive Battle For Iraq The government, the insurgency, key players, background and photos.
-
In The Spotlight Under Fire A look at Blackwater USA, the State Department's top private security contractor.
The Iraq franchise of Osama bin Laden's terror network has been deemed the deadliest threat facing American forces and their allies since shortly after the 2003 invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.
U.S. generals tout recent successes against the Sunni militants as evidence that al Qaeda in Iraq, known by the acronym AQI, may have been dealt a blow from which it cannot recover.
The Post report sites evidence such as the dramatic reduction in suicide bomb attacks - considered a hallmark of al Qaeda worldwide - from more than 60 in January to about half that per month since July.
One senior military intelligence official told the paper that the captures of several AQI leaders during the summer had produced a "cascade effect," leading to the death or arrest of others in the ranks.
Officials also point to a reduction in the numbers of militants coming into Iraq from Syria. However, the Post reports that there is no consensus on why that movement of bodies has slowed - and some intelligence indicates it may be due to al Qaeda shifting its focus from Iraq to other areas.
The Bush administration has also touted the success of native Iraqi Sunni groups that have banded together to fight al Qaeda - which is predominantly Sunni, but seen by many Iraqis as another invading force on their land.
For months, the so-called "Anbar Awakening" has drawn official support and praise from U.S. officials. The movement was backed by American officials and saw prominent Sunni sheiks from the Anbar Province - previously one of the most deadly areas in Iraq - take up arms against AQI.
Anti-al Qaeda sentiment in the Sunni areas of Iraq appears to be growing, with the announcement last Thursday of another coalition pledged to fight foreign militants on Iraqi soil.
In a video first broadcast on an Arabic news channel and then found by CBS News on an extremist Web site, six of the most prominent domestic Sunni jihadist groups declared the formation of the "Political Council of the Iraq Resistance".
The Council is not, like the Anbar group, a U.S.-allied coalition of tribal leaders, and is not in any way supported by America or its allies - it is a coalition of militant jihadist groups who still vow to fight U.S. forces in Iraq.
However, the Council pledges in its introductory announcement to battle all "foreign occupation and foreign influence" in Iraq. Very few al Qaeda militants are Iraqis, and there presence is increasingly seen as an effort to divide the country and exacerbate sectarian strife.
The statement vows that militant operations will target only "the occupiers and their agents, and do not target the innocents and the vulnerable ones". This declaration is a move to label al Qaeda, whose chief tactic has been suicide attacks which leave scores of civilians dead, as an enemy.
Despite facing growing animosity from the native population, and the recent successes of the American military and its allies, some intelligence experts warned the Washington Post that a declaration of victory over the group could be inaccurate, and even dangerous.
"I think it would be premature at this point," a senior intelligence official told the paper, adding that AQI still has "the ability for surprise and for catastrophic attacks".
The Post reports that "earlier periods of optimism… not only proved unfounded but were followed by expanded operations by the militant organization." One example mentioned was the period after the killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in 2006.
In Other Developments:
miles north of Baghdad, Kirkuk police spokesman Brig. Gen. Sarhat Qadir said. Al-Dibo's family said he lived in Kirkuk and contributed stories to at least two weekly newspapers in Tikrit, 80 miles north of Baghdad.
Meanwhile, the Turkish government has decided to send a motion to Parliament seeking approval for a military operation against Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq, a government spokesman said Monday.
The move was not a clear signal an attack was planned following weekend fighting along the border. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's government twice acquired similar authorizations from the Parliament in 2003, but did not act on them.
The government will immediately send a motion to Parliament with the hope of a vote this week, said government spokesman Cemil Cicek said. "Our hope is that there will be no need to use this motion," Cicek said.
The spokesman said any military operation would target the rebel Kurdistan Workers' Party, known by its Kurdish acronym PKK.
The statement appeared to be aimed at reassuring Iraq's central government as well as Iraqi Kurds, who run their own administration in northern Iraq.
"The only target of this motion is the PKK, which is a terrorist organization," Cicek said.
"We have always respected the sovereignty of Iraq, which is a friendly and brotherly country to us," Cicek said.
"But the reality that everyone knows is that this terrorist organization, which has bases in the north of Iraq, is attacking the territorial integrity of Turkey and its citizens."
© MMVII, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Add a Comment See all 771 Comments
- You are just so articulate, sunsetbillyb.
I''d rather be a medical idiot, an IQ of 20, for which I can''t be blamed, than ignorant, like you, which would be my own fault. However, I''m neither, but let me show you how you are the latter:
To say "AL QAEDA IN IRAQ DEFEATED" may or may not be true - only time will tell if they are laying in wait, or have taken such a beating they are going to have to concentrate their efforts in a more localized area.
But to say it is, "THIS IS THE MOST GREATEST LIE SINCE THE CREATION OF THE EARTH" is an obvious exaggeration, showing the author''s frustration. Which I LOVE, since he acts like a liberal.
You know, maybe you are a little closer to idiot than ignorant. Anyway...
We all know the greatest lie since the creation of the earth would have to be Bill Clinton''s, as obviously it reached the most people compared to any other lie...
Cheers... - Reply to this comment
- "AL QAEDA IN IRAQ DEFEATED .. THIS IS THE MOST GREATEST LIE SINCE THE CREATION OF THE EARTH .....
Posted by V_1618
Ah, another liberal in denial. You just gotta love their frustration. - Reply to this comment
- Posted by Iceman_1960 at 01:37 AM : Oct 16, 2007,
Thanks for the info, enjoy your book. - Reply to this comment
- AL QAEDA IN IRAQ DEFEATED .. THIS IS THE MOST GREATEST LIE SINCE THE CREATION OF THE EARTH .....
- Reply to this comment
- "Sanchez: Media"s Reporting of Iraq War Endangered Soldiers" Lives"
- Posted by terrorislam1 at 06:37 AM : Oct 16, 2007
The foolish war itself, the foolish plan for the war, the foolish lack of preparation, and the foolish stubbornness, are what has not only endangered soldiers lives, but actually killed and maimed scores of thousands of them.
Not "the Media"s reporting" - Reply to this comment
- THE LIBERAL MAIN MEDIA AND DEMONIC-RAT BS PROPOGANDA MACHINE
The death knell of your ethics has been enabled by your parent organizations who have chosen to align themselves with political agendas. What is clear to me is that you are perpetuating the corrosive partisan politics that is destroying our country and killing our service members who are at war.
http://www.militaryreporters.org/sanchez_101207.html
Sanchez Blasts Media, But Media Only Highlight His Criticism of Bush
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/brent-baker/2007/10/15/sanchez-blasts-media-media-only-highlight-his-criticism-bush
Sanchez Assaults Drive-By Media
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_101507/content/01125112.guest.html
Retired general issues sharply worded rebuke of ''unscrupulous reporting''
http://blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadline/2007/10/retired-general.html
Sanchez: Media''s Reporting of Iraq War Endangered Soldiers'' Lives
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,301676,00.html - Reply to this comment
CBS News has placed a sizable investment into conflating the "al-Qaeda-in-Iraq" ruse, parroting one anonymous statement and one vacuous claim after another.
For added effect, they have often supplied us with the ever-breathless Ms. Lara Logan, to administer the latest sinister tales of "al-Qaeda-in-Iraq", not to mention having been subjected to the ruthlessly putrid, and naked propaganda efforts of Mark Strassmann, on far too many occasions.
This leads one to conclude that CBS is not only deeply complicit in fomenting the illegal war against Iraq, but it is directly complicit in the ongoing day-to-day death and mayhem there, with its dutiful transmission of completely unreferenced "official" nonsense, being presented as "news".
This is another very sad development for the Western press.- Reply to this comment
- RE: Post by AJMarine1 at 10:33 PM : Oct 15, 2007
I"m familiar with the Colonel Tin interview with the WSJ, but that happened after he left Vietnam. As for the General Giap quote, where he thanked the anti-war protestors, that would be out of character with his words in his book, where the cause-effect went the other way: the NVA"s victories led to the protests, not the other way around.
Actually Giap doesn"t even mention the protests, much less Jane Fonda, John Kerry or Walter Kronkite.
Except: "...after the U.S. had been compelled as a result of its heavy defeats [NAME ONE, GENERAL] to sign the Paris Agreement and withdraw its troops from our country...For its part, U.S. imperialism was suffering more and more from the effects of its defeats in South Vietnam and was meeting with increasing difficulties in the political, economic and military fields within the U.S. inself as well as in the world... the possibilities of its re-entering the war had dwindled. This was not mainly because the U.S. was running out of force but because the ruling circles [sic] in the U.S. had realised that even if they recklessly used armed forces to invade South Vietnam for a second time they could neither save the puppet army nor reverse the situation; they would only court a still more bitter defeat." - General Giap, "How We Won The War"
Those are not the words of a man who would say something like "We were on the verge of suing for peace when Jane Fonda came along and saved us." - Reply to this comment
- JWhitman I was pointing out that the article says both that there are still 30 attacks a day by Al Qaida in Iraq, and that they are all killed or dead and there''s no hope of them coming back. I have always felt that there was no such thing as Al Qaida in Iraq, but instead that these were just Iraqis who are fed up with the occupation as we would be fed up with, for example, Chinese troops driving up and down our streets with guns. If you accept that they might be ordinary people, not some evil subspecies of person, empathy might creep in.
- Reply to this comment
- Getitfree: Told you last night. Meds on the frig next to the cereal. Yeah right there. Feel sanity coming, as dementia leaves, all better. Al-Queada''s not beat their on winter hiatus for the next few months......no wait that was our politicians over the summer. My bad.
- Reply to this comment
- "When everything is secret, everything is legal."
SearingTruth
A Future of the Brave - www.searingtruth.com - Reply to this comment
- "We are all capable of believing things which we know to be untrue, and then, when we are finally proved wrong, impudently twisting the facts so as to show that we were right. Intellectually, it is possible to carry on this process for an indefinite time: the only check on it is that sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually on a battlefield."
George Orwell
A Future of the Brave - www.searingtruth.com - Reply to this comment
- "But the mild voice of reason, pleading the cause of an enlarged and permanent interest, is but too often drowned, before public bodies as well as individuals, by the clamors of an impatient avidity for immediate and immoderate gain."
James Madison, Federalist No. 42, January 22, 1788
A Future of the Brave - www.searingtruth.com - Reply to this comment
- I''ve so much in common .. with no one. - getitfree
- Reply to this comment
- I want a song .. all my own. Thats never played on the radio. That nobody else can hear but me.
- Reply to this comment
- Death is when life becomes cheap. And life becomes cheap when people are allowed to know you. When people are allowed to say they''re just like you.
- Reply to this comment
- "Don''t they know?" I cried. "Don''t they know they wear it out? Like a ******** pair''a jeans?"
- Reply to this comment
- "Why?" I said. "Why? Must such beautiful thought be tainted by language?"
- Reply to this comment
- Once I loved knowledge. Once I loved knowing. Then I heard somebody else say it. And it was the stupidest thing I ever heard before.
- Reply to this comment
- Death is the language of a think once known to be true, and then made into a philosophy, and thereby a sophistry. And nothing more..
- Reply to this comment
Mike Huckabee on GOP "rock stars," 2012, health care reform and more.
