The Myth of AQI

As everyone knows, one of the major things we're doing in Iraq is fighting al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), which has a major presence in Sunni areas. The reason we're giving money and weapons to Sunni insurgent groups that were killing Americans a year ago and still wish to overthrow the majoritarian Shiite government we installed is that they're helping us fight AQI. Even Democrats agree that we can't withdraw all our troops from Iraq, because we still need some to do counterterrorism (i.e., fight AQI) and training (so that AQI doesn't take over). But Andrew Tilghman, Iraq correspondent for Stars and Stripes 2005 and 2006, writes in "The Myth of AQI" that this is mostly BS:

But what if official military estimates about the size and impact of al-Qaeda in Iraq are simply wrong? Indeed, interviews with numerous military and intelligence analysts, both inside and outside of government, suggest that the number of strikes the group has directed represent only a fraction of what official estimates claim. Further, al-Qaeda's presumed role in leading the violence through uniquely devastating attacks that catalyze further unrest may also be overstated. [...]

Yet those who have worked on estimates inside the system take a more circumspect view. Alex Rossmiller, who worked in Iraq as an intelligence officer for the Department of Defense, says that real uncertainties exist in assigning responsibility for attacks. "It was kind of a running joke in our office," he recalls. "We would sarcastically refer to everybody as al-Qaeda." [...]

How big, then, is AQI? The most persuasive estimate I've heard comes from Malcolm Nance, the author of The Terrorists of Iraq and a twenty-year intelligence veteran and Arabic speaker who has worked with military and intelligence units tracking al-Qaeda inside Iraq. He believes AQI includes about 850 full-time fighters, comprising 2 percent to 5 percent of the Sunni insurgency. "Al-Qaeda in Iraq," according to Nance, "is a microscopic terrorist organization." [...]

he view that AQI is neither as big nor as lethal as commonly believed is widespread among working-level analysts and troops on the ground. A majority of those interviewed for this article believe that the military's AQI estimates are overblown to varying degrees. If such misgivings are common, why haven't doubts pricked the public debate? The reason is that alternate views are running up against an echo chamber of powerful players all with an interest in hyping AQI's role.

Seems like an important point.

DoD photo by Staff Sargent D. Myles Cullen, U.S. Air Force

Comments

What if our new Sunni allies can't kill all the AQI fighters, and merely chase some of them out of Iraq? Won't we just have to fight them here in that case?

Posted by Barry | September 7, 2007 10:19 AM

We need to compile a list of writers on Iraq that are trustworthy--ie. limit their conclusions to verifiable facts and not manipulated "intelligence". The cycle of spin and arrogance is infuriating.

How exactly does giving weapons to Sunni fundamentalist groups contribute to our supposed goal of NOT provoking a bloodbath? Our imebelic leaders and talking heads castigate Iran and Syria for supposedly giving weapons to Shiite militias (who, btw, support the government we claim to support). Yet Americans give them out to both sides. I wish we had a study of where the weapons of actual terrorists and rebels are coming from.

Posted by Scott Kern | September 7, 2007 10:21 AM

The weird thing is that it's going to take a secular Sunni strongman to get things "just right" in Iraq. Someone we could arm. Someone who wouldn't be afraid to take on Iran.

Pardon me. I'm going to go over here and get sick behind this shed.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | September 7, 2007 10:47 AM

Isn't the name "al-Qaeda in Iraq" itself a myth?

It is my understanding that the organization's actual name is "al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia," and AQI is a term adopted to sell the myth that AQI is a branch of al-Qaeda that happens to be in Iraq.

Admittedly, I know more about propaganda efforts in the DoD than I do about translation. Are both equally correct, making this mere manipulation? Or is it an out and out lie?

Posted by Aaron | September 7, 2007 10:56 AM

"It is my understanding that the organization's actual name is "al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia," and AQI is a term adopted to sell the myth that AQI is a branch of al-Qaeda that happens to be in Iraq."

Isn't Mesopotamia just an old-timey name for Iraq? Like Constantinople and Istanbul?

I guess Wikipedia is a propaganda arm of the government.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Qaeda_in_Iraq

War critics make themselves look silly when they deny commonly recognized facts.

"The weird thing is that it's going to take a secular Sunni strongman to get things "just right" in Iraq. Someone we could arm. Someone who wouldn't be afraid to take on Iran.
Pardon me. I'm going to go over here and get sick behind this shed."

Yeah war critics were predicting that Saddam would be replaced by a Sunni strongman right after the war, but it was another of their predictions that didn't come true.

Posted by Peter K. | September 7, 2007 11:32 AM

The Arabic title that the group uses for itself is tanzim qa'idat al-jihad fi bilad al-rafidain, or roughly "Organization of the Base for Jihad in the Land Between the Two Rivers".

AQI (for short) does not recognize Iraq as a legitimate national entity, being just one province in the eventual caliphate. al-Rafidain is the old Arabic word for the region called Iraq and is used colloquially throughout Iraq as a sort of old-fashioned poetic terminology for it. Thus Rafidain Bank, for instance.

Posted by tequila | September 7, 2007 11:45 AM

Um, regardless of whether they say they're from Iraq and Mesopotamia, these aren't the guys plotting terrorist strikes on US soil. That's why the "we're fighting Al Qaida" line is so disingenuous....

"Yeah war critics were predicting that Saddam would be replaced by a Sunni strongman right after the war, but it was another of their predictions that didn't come true."

If only they had..... Too bad war critics don't have access to the sublime strategic vision of Bush and his cronies. Destroy Iraqi infastructure, arm both sides, sieze the oil fields and import foreign workers, impoverish everyone....all in the name of freedom!

Posted by Scott Kern | September 7, 2007 11:46 AM

Looks like the 300 movie - even if these 850 "base" (AQ just means base) were Spartans (or Marines), why not let them try their luck getting past the indigenous forces in Iraq? The AQI have no WMD, right? If they want to come to the US, what is stopping them now?

At most, an Eisenhower or Marshall (or Patreaus, left to his own devices) might allow a force of 8,500 or so US forces (10 to 1 ratio) to be tasked with fighting the 850 in AQI in Iraq (assuming Iraq itself cannot muster 8500 armed troops ready to go toe-to-toe with AQI, which is not my assumption).

Posted by cfw | September 7, 2007 11:48 AM

Bush and Cheney haven't replaced Saddam with a strongman because they haven't been able to find one they like yet.

Seriously.

Posted by magisterludi | September 7, 2007 12:01 PM

The Lafties praying for an American defeat in Iraq to really punish That Moron!!! of course seek to minimize AQ in Iraq, deny that they are even AQ, even say these car bombers and suicide bombers would immediately seek productive jobs and take Islamic breeders to thrilling Jihadi movies and peacefully hang out at the local Arab Soda Shoppe if only those "provoking" Americans would run.

One reason for the desperate denial is that Lefties know Americans are less likely to buy into running if they are fighting AQ and Iranians, or buy into the current Lefty narrative that the "real AQ" is only 4-5 guys hiding out in Pakistan that we must bomb or otherwise attack, even without Pak agreement, so the "4-5 Evildoers", including Bin Laden, can be "brought to justice" - hopefully alive and with tons of ACLU and Yale/Harvard Law Professors defending them

Scott Kern Um, regardless of whether they say they're from Iraq and Mesopotamia, these aren't the guys plotting terrorist strikes on US soil. That's why the "we're fighting Al Qaida" line is so disingenuous....

Ummmm, no. Almost all the leadership of AQI is non-Iraqi. Almost all the suicide bombers are non-Iraqis. Enemy captured say that the organization uses locals, mostly ex-criminals, as the enforcers, gruntwork doers, scouts, and IED planters.

They are the guys NOW planning to kill American citizens in the ME and Europe. Starting with the US soldiers they butcher...

They are the guys that Ayman al-Zawahiri was referring to that "can fan out globally and smite the infidel wherever he is, especially Americans and Jews", once the "Victory on Allah's Central Front against the Jew-Crusaders" is ours" (Iraq, for the especially dense).

It surely must suck when Bush's total humbling and America's comeuppance even greater than the Lefty triump of stabbing South Vietnam in the back is so close at hand - to hear that AQI is being routed. And Sunni media from Morocco to Indonesia is full of stories about Sunni families and tribes in Iraq describing their awful existence under the type of society AQ wants to put all Muslims under. To hear why AQ is so bad for Arabs, such a cancer, that they must side with the infidel against them.

And Sunni media in the Ummah is also full of discussion of the harmful role Iran is playing training and arming Shiite militias that are butchering Sunnis. That while America is a blundering puppet of Jews, it seems that it is needed to stay in Iraq so Sunnis can be protected until the Sadrists, DAWA, and Iranians can be checked..

Posted by Chris Ford | September 7, 2007 1:52 PM

While I agree that "AQI" seems more of a marketing slogan than an important part of the strategic picture, there clearly is a direct link between the foreign jihadists in Iraq and the Al Qaeda which attacked us on 9/11 - both groups are overwhelmingly Saudi Arabian.

www.asecondlookatthesaudis.com

Yes, the fanatical young men responsible for the Mosul mess tent bombing in 2004 (to this day the deadliest single attack on Americans of the war) and the bombing of the Golden Shrine in Samarra in 2006 just happen to be from the exact same place as those 9/11 hijackers. I don't think that is a coincidence.

The real outrage here is that the Bush administration is so committed to kissing Saudi royal ass, that they will not even acknowledge this - even though it would immeasurably help buttress their case for linking Al Qaeda with Iraq (they could actually argue from the facts for once).

Posted by Bill in Chicago | September 7, 2007 2:13 PM

Actually before the anti-war people were predicting Bush and Cheney would install a Shi'ia strongman named Ahmed Chalabi. And there are strong indications that people in and around the VP's office haven't given up hope.

That's why they flew Chalabi and an advance guard into Baghdad (those joyous Iraqis around the Fall of the Statue? Those are all Chalabi guys, a fact the Independent was reporting in real time, but oddly didn't get much play here.)

Garner's abrubt departure reportedly had much to do with his refusal to simply hand over the keys of the country to Chalabi. An early example is this piece from May 2003 from National Review The Great Sorting Out

The most articulate and forceful of them is Ahmad Chalabi, a member of a prominent family and secular in outlook, with a degree from MIT. Consistently supported by the Pentagon, he founded and now leads the Iraqi National Congress, an embryo political party as well as a movement of national liberation. But every time he takes a step forward, the State Department pushes him back. The CIA has long maintained that Chalabi has no popular support. A few days after the ground assault began, the CIA went so far as to issue a report to the effect that Chalabi should not replace Saddam. In reality he is very much his own man, but the only serious argument his detractors can offer is that he might be perceived as an American puppet. As the war progressed, he flew in from Iraqi Kurdistan to newly liberated Nasiriya, with some hundreds of para-military supporters. Nearby in the small and dusty town of Shatra he set up headquarters in a disused warehouse. According to some sources, people have never heard of him, asking "Ahmad who?" According to other sources, he is cheered in the streets.

Well the cheering in the streets people turned out, much like Curveball, to be just Chalabi people. It turns out there was a lot more "Ahmad who?" going on than the Rumsfeld/Cheney 'plan' anticipated. The whole troops down to 30,000 by November 2003 had at it's core the belief that Chalabi's INC had widespread popular support.

Of course some of us were pointing this out before, you know we rolled into the country with too few troops based on misrepresentations from a convicted con man.

Chris can has his own opinions about our motives, my point is that on every substantial prediction the anti-war people were far more right than wrong. We don't oppose the War because of Bush, we oppose Bush largely because of the War. It was a predictable CF. Why can I say that? Because some people predicted it, laid out their cases, and have been vindicated by events.

One thing we know about the Saddam regime is that it was efficient. You only have to look at the skill by which they managed to eliminate every trace of the weapans programs known to exist in 1996 right under the noses not only of the international community and the CIA but right under his own Generals. The Generals and Commanders who led Saddams Secret Police and Intelligence organizations are out there, or at least the mid-level Majors and Colonels who carried out operations. I would bet the Baathists have a pretty good idea of the who and the where of AQI and haven't lost any of their skills with meathooks.

People who were paying attention in 2004 were predicting that Zarkawi and his subsequent AQI would last just as long as Sunni's found it convenient and recent events are confirming that. I mean you can call it 'bottom up reconciliation' but really what is going on in Anbar is surrender to the Sunni insurgency. They get guns and control of Ramadi and Fallujah, in exchange they put down their pit bull of AQI. We could have had that deal in 2003. But then again they were still banking on Chalabi instead.

(The Jordanians could have explained that banking on Chalabi was quite literally a proven mistake.)

Posted by Bruce Webb | September 7, 2007 2:24 PM

D*mn, Chris, your language skills are fading before our very eyes. Could you please repeat that post, but in logical English?

Posted by Barry | September 7, 2007 2:40 PM

"It surely must suck when Bush's total humbling and America's comeuppance even greater than the Lefty triump of stabbing South Vietnam in the back is so close at hand - to hear that AQI is being routed."

Actually, Chris, the fact that AQI is being routed is an argument for withdrawal of the vast majority of our troops, not an argument for keeping them there indefinitely. The routing of AQI is being done primarily by the Sunni Iraqis, who are glad to use weapons provided by the Great Satan to destroy Al-Qaeda. This routing simply validates what John Murtha said a while ago: the Iraqis are perfectly capable and willling to take out Al-Qaeda themselves, making the presence of 150,000+ American troops in Iraq unnecessary for the purpose of destroying AQ's presence there. Unlike Osama and his senior management team in Pakistan, AQ in Iraq no longer has safe haven, so they are in no position to plot, let alone carry out, 9/11 type attacks on the West.

(BTW, Chris, did you notice in the news story about the terrorists arrested in Germany that they received their training in Pakistan, not Iraq? Could that mean that your laughable assertions that there are only 4-5 AQ people in Pakistan, and that getting destroying AQ's presence in Pakistan is unnecessary, are completely unfounded?)

Of course, you are completely ignoring the fact that most of the violence occuring in Iraq is not being perpetuated by Al Qaeda, but by the Iraqis themselves. The destruction of Al Qaeda in Iraq is a wonderful thing (NEWS FLASH to Chris: lefties want to destroy AQ also), but destroying AQ will not end the sectarian civil war going on in Iraq. It is this sectarian civil war that has been the primary focus of our military actions in Iraq, not the destruction of Al Qaeda. However, this sectarian civil war is a war the US has no business being involved with, especially since the Sunni/Shia conflict in Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. Moreover, this conflict has nothing to do with the conflict of radical Islam with the infidel West, since it is motivated by the desire of one subset of radical Islamists to kill other subsets of radical Islamists over issues of Islamic heresy.

Moreover, South Vietnam was not stabbed in the back. Rather, the South Vietnamese government failed to gain the support of the South Vietnamese people (who preferred reunification with the North over separation). So if anybody stabbed the Saigon regime in its back, it was the South Vietnamese themselves. In addition, since the Vietnamese people as a whole have rejected Communism, the Hanoi regime established by Ho Chi Minh was also stabbed in the back. So, in the long run, since the Vietnamese Communists lost the hearts & minds war to Western capitalism, the US did win in Vietnam. It's just that the wingnut idea of what constituted victory in Vietnam (a military win over the Hanoi regime) was completely wrong.

This is a lesson that Chris & his fellow right-wing dead-enders need to consider.

Posted by eltoro | September 7, 2007 3:00 PM

Chris obviously didn't read the article (big surprise!), since he didn't notice that there is little evidence that "AQI" is being "routed" at all.

The article states that what is really happening is that the US military is giving bags of money to local chieftains who are then TELLING the US military that they are "fighting Al Qaeda."

Good scam - wonder if I can get in on it...

Hey, Bush! I'm fighting Al Qaeda here in San Francisco! Send me money!

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | September 7, 2007 5:06 PM