Principle Threat

Evan Bayh's doing an excellent job of homing in on the fact that the Intelligence Community regards the principle threat to the United States as emanating from Central Asia, making it rather perverse for us to be dedicating five times the level of resources to Iraq. He also wins huge plaudits from me for mentioning, in response to something Ambassador Crocker said, that "I would only caution us not to take our marching orders from Osama bin Laden."

Exactly so. It's really lunatic of hawks to keep citing OBL's desire to fight us in Iraq as a reason for us to fight him in Iraq. He likes the fight in Iraq because it's favorable terrain for his cause and his propaganda and lets him pose as the defender of the Arab world against American domination. They're suggesting we act like bulls running at the toreador's cape.

Comments

Central Asia? You mean, like Tajikistan and those parts? Meaning that's where the next wave of terrorists are coming from? I did not know the intelligence community thought any such thing. Sources?

Posted by roac | April 8, 2008 2:01 PM

Aw damn, Obama is on at 2:30, right when I have to leave.

Posted by 55 | April 8, 2008 2:04 PM

For God's sake, Matt, can't you check your spelling better?

Posted by Bruce Moomaw | April 8, 2008 2:06 PM

What took the damn Democrats in DC so long to figure this out? I guess they stopped taking their stupid pills.

Posted by Joe Klein's conscience | April 8, 2008 2:09 PM

Central Asia? You mean, like Tajikistan and those parts?

How about Pakistan and Afghanistan for starters.

Posted by BFR | April 8, 2008 2:15 PM

I don't mean to nag about the typos, but it's the principle of the matter. My principal problem with your blog is the careless attention to detail.

Posted by The School Principal | April 8, 2008 2:16 PM

The Democrats need to be more offensive on the difference between a phased and a rapid withdrawal. It's not Ron Paul calling to march out tomorrow. What arguments have the Republicans made that even a gradual withdrawal would result in chaos?

Posted by 55 | April 8, 2008 2:16 PM

What arguments have the Republicans made that even a gradual withdrawal would result in chaos?

They keep repeating over and over that the "reckless" proposals of the Democrats will result in chaos and catastrophe. It's more like assertion than actual argument.

Posted by blah | April 8, 2008 2:20 PM

"How about Pakistan and Afghanistan for starters.

Posted by BFR | April 8, 2008 2:15 PM"

The State Department considers them part of South Asia, not Central Asia (which I'm guessing State uses to refer to Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, etc.). I'm not sure what terminology they're using over at the CIA, the NSA and the Pentagon though. This is a time when a link from MY would be nice.

Posted by Reality Man | April 8, 2008 2:25 PM

It's not necessarily just assertion. Most of the order in Iraq is being provided by the Shiite-dominated government, Sunni militias, and Kurdish authority in the north - all of whom are on our payroll, with the US acting as mediator. It stands to reason that if you pull out the bulwark too soon, before any of these truces and agreements between the various factions have time to "harden", then the situation will simply move to an equilibriam where whoever is strongest and richest dominates.

I mean, just look at what happened to Maliki's forces - they got mauled. But if we don't continue to give him time to make them better (and they are better than they used to be, since only 1,000 desertions is better than "only 1 brigade usable" like in 2004), then he'll simply be toppled when we pull out, to be replaced by someone stronger and probably much less America-friendly. Probably not Al'Sadr (he's made himself too unpopular with the general Shiite population due to his gang's criminal activity), but there are others in the Shi'ite ranks who might step up.

Posted by Brett | April 8, 2008 2:28 PM

It's not necessarily just assertion. Most of the order in Iraq is being provided by the Shiite-dominated government, Sunni militias, and Kurdish authority in the north - all of whom are on our payroll, with the US acting as mediator. It stands to reason that if you pull out the bulwark too soon, before any of these truces and agreements between the various factions have time to "harden", then the situation will simply move to an equilibriam where whoever is strongest and richest dominates.

I mean, just look at what happened to Maliki's forces - they got mauled. But if we don't continue to give him time to make them better (and they are better than they used to be, since only 1,000 desertions is better than "only 1 brigade usable" like in 2004), then he'll simply be toppled when we pull out, to be replaced by someone stronger and probably much less America-friendly. Probably not Al'Sadr (he's made himself too unpopular with the general Shiite population due to his gang's criminal activity), but there are others in the Shi'ite ranks who might step up.

Posted by Brett | April 8, 2008 2:29 PM

"Principal" is the word you want.

Posted by Matthew Struhar | April 8, 2008 2:31 PM

I can't stand when our principles are threatened.

Posted by Al | April 8, 2008 2:36 PM

OBL also likes the drain on our military and economy. I don't think he ever believed it would be this easy, but he underestimated Bush's stupidity, not to mention his macho strutting. He could hardly have imagined anyone better suited to implement his plan.

Posted by The Golux | April 8, 2008 2:43 PM

Being a shaky speller is one thing, and making typos (i.e., inadvertently mistyping words) is another, but not knowing the difference between, e.g., 'principle' and 'principal' is neither of those.

I know you don't seem to care much about these criticisms, but you are a professional writer, and this is the kind of thing that ought to be part of the basic competence of anyone who makes a living by writing. Just saying.

Posted by hum | April 8, 2008 2:45 PM

Evan Bayh's doing an excellent job...

I didn't read the rest of this post, as clearly this is an alternate Matt Yglesias writing to us from a parallel universe.

Posted by Phaedrus | April 8, 2008 2:48 PM

"I would only caution us not to take our marching orders from Osama bin Laden."

"It's not my fault. Bin Laden made me do it." --George W. Bush

Posted by LFC | April 8, 2008 2:52 PM

"I would only caution us not to take our marching orders from Osama bin Laden."

"It's not my fault. Bin Laden made me do it." --George W. Bush

Posted by LFC | April 8, 2008 2:54 PM

UBL likes the fight in Iraq? Are you kidding? He began pulling fighters out of Iraq and "redploying" them to Pakistan many months ago. He has lost in Iraq and he damn well knows it. Too bad so many here are a bit behind the times.

www.bothinonetrench.com

Posted by Ray Robison | April 8, 2008 2:58 PM

The principle/principal thing aside, toreador is also wrong. The word you want is torero. I learned this from Hemingway. You can learn it from me...

Keep up the good fight!

Posted by dylan howard | April 8, 2008 3:07 PM

From my American Thinker article summarizing a Washington Post interview with the AQI secon in command:

Al Qaeda appears to be crumbling in Iraq, a spectacular victory in the War on Terror. A senior leader has bared his soul to Amit R. Paley of the Washington Post, painting a vivid picture of what the surge has done to al Qaeda in Iraq. Here are some notable points from Paley's excellent article.

- In 2007 alone, over 2,400 AQI members killed, almost 9,000 captured.

- Post Reporter meets with AQ in Iraq a senior leader, or emir, Riyadh al-Ogaidi, who used to travel with 20 bodyguards. Now he goes alone to remain anonymous.

- Ogaidi also said AQI membership plummeted from about 12,000 in June 2007 to about 3,500 today.

- Foreign fighter infiltration greatly reduced. Riyadh al-Ogaidi, a senior leader, or emir, of al-Qaeda in Iraq, said the total number of foreign fighters in Iraq is "in the tens -- not more than 200." US military agrees with the drastic reduction claim.

- They are begging tribal leaders to allow them back in, promising to be good this time.

- He tips that AQI is fractured, saying of the AQI top dog ,"He is mild-mannered and weak".

- He said of the Anbar awakening ""This also created panic, fear and the unwillingness to fight. The morale of the fighters went down."

- He said because of the surge and Anbar Awakening, "We found ourselves in a circle not being able to move, organize or conduct our operations,"

- Quote from AQI leader Abu Hamza al-Muhajer. "The Americans have not defeated us, but the turnaround of the Sunnis against us had made us lose a lot and suffer very painfully."

Does that sound like something that makes Usama bin Laden happy? He has lost in Iraq and Afghanistan, and other jihad leaders and even Saudi clerics are denouncing him. Al Qaeda is losing operational space in Pakistan, though it is a bit of a toss up right now and can go either way. However, the military, democratic, and now even the jihad political block in Pakistan have all teamed up to stop al Qaeda from taking more territory in Pakistan. This is a very bad time for Usama bin Laden. I feel like some bloggers get their research from Bazooka Joe bubble gum wrappers.

www.bothinonetrench.com

Posted by Ray Robison | April 8, 2008 3:08 PM

...er... So you're saying that mountains are better than plains for confronting terrorists??????? !!!!

Now, we managed to screw things up so badly that we weren't able to take advantage of that 'til recently, but we made many of the same mistakes in Afghanistan, plus giving the farmers to the other side by our usual overbearing treatment of drugs.

No, Iraq is a much better place for us. Daring the terrorists to go there may be the only thing he did right in the Iraq War. It's a pity the enemy's finally figuring that out.

Posted by Jon Kay | April 8, 2008 3:19 PM

AQI was never the main problem in Iraq. It was a pattern of the administration that they blamed all problems in Iraq on "AQI," rather than confronting the fact that we were dealing with Sunni insurgents who hated us on principle along with one Shi'ite faction that hates the other Shi'ite faction.

Destroying AQI would just put us back to where we started from when the Sunni insurgency and teetering instability of the Iraqi government were merely the only problems, rather than the primary problems. However, by dingenuously acting like AQI is our main problem in Iraq, it makes everything look like a big success.

Posted by Tyro | April 8, 2008 3:33 PM

You're right on target, Tyro. "Al Qaeda" and "9/11" are magic incantations to the Bush administration, meant to sweep aside all actual debate and facts. Unfortunately for Bush and fortunately for America, the pixie dust is no longer working.

Posted by LFC | April 8, 2008 4:33 PM

"AQI was never the main problem in Iraq." Posted by Tyro | April 8, 2008 3:33 PM

Thats not what I have been told by returning vets... some have told me of observing al Qaeda operators go into a mixed neighborhood and attack both Sunni and Shia to make them think the other had done it. So yeah, the fighting was sectarian, but in many cases it was purposely instigated by al Qaeda to create instability so we would give up and go home. But fortunately, the president is not a cut and run liberal and we stayed and have largely defeated al Qaeda.

Posted by Ray Robison | April 8, 2008 5:33 PM

Ray Robinson, you're once against specifically dodging the issue. The military was never primarily being attacked by AQI. There main enemy was the Sunni insurgency, regardless in any role AQI may have played in fomenting sectarian hostilities. You're simply continuing to play the role of acting as though all or most of our problems had to do with AQI. Many American politicians -- which I can see have had their effect on you -- continued a public campaign to label all attacks on American troops as "Al Qaeda." This was to keep you emotionally obsessed with the Iraq war as being necessary in order to keep you engaged. Thankfully, it is only dead-enders like yourself who are in their last throes of demands that we continue the occupation.

However, it is uncouth to -- purposesly or ignorantly -- pretend that all the attacks the US faces in Iraq are from AQI, when in fact a large part has been the Sadr brigades and the Sunni insurgency. It is also strange that in your long post, you completely ignore their role, which cannot be ignored if we're to form a good iraq policy, rather than one driven by ignorance.

Posted by Tyro | April 8, 2008 5:43 PM

Thats not what I have been told by returning vets... some have told me of observing al Qaeda operators go into a mixed neighborhood and attack both Sunni and Shia to make them think the other had done it.

Um, ok, sounds really plausible. Did the AQ, Shia and Sunni all wear nametages in English helpfully identifying themselves to the soldiers? And the soldiers just watched this all happen?

Posted by blah | April 8, 2008 5:45 PM

Um, ok, sounds really plausible. Did the AQ, Shia and Sunni all wear nametages in English helpfully identifying themselves to the soldiers? And the soldiers just watched this all happen?

Posted by blah | April 8, 2008 5:45 PM

Do you happen to know anybody who worked intel issues in Baghdad? I do. You probably don't, which is why concepts such as this are hard to understand when the closest you get to the military/intelligence analysis is reading Huffington Post.

Posted by Ray Robison | April 8, 2008 5:52 PM

Blow it out your ass, tough guy. You sound like an idiot.

Posted by blah | April 8, 2008 5:56 PM

Ray Robinson, you're once against specifically dodging the issue. The military was never primarily being attacked by AQI. There main enemy was the Sunni insurgency, regardless in any role AQI may have played in fomenting sectarian hostilities.

Posted by Tyro | April 8, 2008 5:43 PM

The sunni insurgency merged with al Qaeda in many aspects early in the fight, end of 2003. The truth it was a mix of sunni oppositionists - lead by Saddam loyalists, integrated with actual al Qaeda foreign fighters led by Zarqawi, and paying off jobless guys who were looking to make a buck to do some of the grunt work (low skil mercenaries). And your charge that public officials tried to claim it was al Qaeda is easily disproven. But let's not let facts get in the way.

You also wrote "Many American politicians -- which I can see have had their effect on you -- continued a public campaign to label all attacks on American troops as "Al Qaeda." This was to keep you emotionally obsessed with the Iraq war as being necessary in order to keep you engaged. Thankfully, it is only dead-enders like yourself who are in their last throes of demands that we continue the occupation."

Really? This is the White House Iraq strategy document from 2005.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/infocus/iraq/iraq_strategy_nov2005.html

In it it defines the enemy in Iraq. As you say, if the administration was trying to make it all about al Qaeda in Iraq, than we can presume it makes no mention of the other enemy groups we face in Iraq.

But indeed, it does explain the enemy beyond al Qaeda:

The enemy in Iraq is a combination of rejectionists, Saddamists, and terrorists affiliated with or inspired by Al Qaida. These three groups share a common opposition to the elected Iraqi government and to the presence of Coalition forces, but otherwise have separate and to some extent incompatible goals.
Rejectionists are the largest group. They are largely Sunni Arabs who have not embraced the shift from Saddam Hussein's Iraq to a democratically governed state. Not all Sunni Arabs fall into this category. But those that do are against a new Iraq in which they are no longer the privileged elite. Most of these rejectionists opposed the new constitution, but many in their ranks are recognizing that opting out of the democratic process has hurt their interests.
We judge that over time many in this group will increasingly support a democratic Iraq provided that the federal government protects minority rights and the legitimate interests of all communities.
Saddamists and former regime loyalists harbor dreams of reestablishing a Ba'athist dictatorship and have played a lead role in fomenting wider sentiment against the Iraqi government and the Coalition.
We judge that few from this group can be won over to support a democratic Iraq, but that this group can be marginalized to the point where it can and will be defeated by Iraqi forces.
Terrorists affiliated with or inspired by Al Qaida make up the smallest enemy group but are the most lethal and pose the most immediate threat because (1) they are responsible for the most dramatic atrocities, which kill the most people and function as a recruiting tool for further terrorism and (2) they espouse the extreme goals of Osama Bin Laden -- chaos in Iraq which will allow them to establish a base for toppling Iraq's neighbors and launching attacks outside the region and against the U.S. homeland.
The terrorists have identified Iraq as central to their global aspirations. For that reason, terrorists and extremists from all parts of the Middle East and North Africa have found their way to Iraq and made common cause with indigenous religious extremists and former members of Saddam's regime. This group cannot be won over and must be defeated -- killed or captured -- through sustained counterterrorism operations.
There are other elements that threaten the democratic process in Iraq, including criminals and Shi'a religious extremists, but we judge that such elements can be handled by Iraqi forces alone and/or assimilated into the political process in the short term.

Now, you said this administration was trying to make it all about al Qaeda. Yet here is the official document which shows the opposite of what you claim to be true.

So which is it, are you making this claim from ignorance or deception?

www.bothinonetrench.com

Posted by Ray Robison | April 8, 2008 6:16 PM

Blow it out your ass, tough guy. You sound like an idiot.

Posted by blah | April 8, 2008 5:56 PM

I'll just add that to the list of other stupid things you have written here and laugh about it for the next thirty minutes.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAH!

Posted by Ray Robison | April 8, 2008 6:20 PM

they espouse the extreme goals of Osama Bin Laden -- chaos in Iraq which will allow them to establish a base for toppling Iraq's neighbors

Wait a minute I thought we were in favor of toppling Iraq's neighbors! At least Iran and Syria. So AQI has been on our side all this time?!

This whole argument is preposterous. The foreign Islamists never had and do not have a chance of establishing control of Iraq or any substantial portion thereof, because they were vastly outnumbered by the various Iraqi militias, none of which have any more use for them than they do for other foreigners. It was always a certainly that they were going to be liquidated sooner or later by the natives, as has in fact happened (with our help).

Posted by roac | April 8, 2008 6:45 PM

Ray Robinson, it is a matter of record that the public statements by Republican politicians and other war-enablers, specifically for the purpose of propagandizing you, sought to conflate all the insurgents fighting the US troops with "al-qaeda in iraq" and to conflate "al-qaeda in iraq" with "al-qaeda." One can see this clearly in the public statements from the president, vice president, and dull-witted republican congressmen. We all know, and apparently YOU know biut tried to dishonestly act otherwise, that AQI has always been an ancillary issue regarding the hostility the US faced in Iraq and a problem whose existence was created an exacerbating by America's presence in the first place.

You, in fact, continue this pattern of obfuscation and abuse by pointing to the pacification of AQI in order to wrongly claim that the surge is a triumph. This is nothing but "internet tough guy" preening on your part for the purpose of supporting the bush administration. The rank dishonesty on your part regarding this issue is completely unwarranted and only acts to prevent sensible thinking about iraq in service of your tough-guy fantasies.

Posted by Tyro | April 8, 2008 6:57 PM

Robison, you're a complete clueless fucking idiot.

By the US military's own estimates, AQI never amounted to more than than about seven percent of the Sunni insurgency.

While there is no doubt that they did spur on the sectarian conflict, US tactics in Iraq also did so. See the article in Asia Times which explains exactly how US operations in Fallujah and Baghdad explicitly provided the opportunity for sectarian violence to escalate and for Al Qaeda to be able to take advantage of that and increase it.

Go look it up, moron, instead of quoting a "White House strategy document" which is a fucking joke in itself and more importantly has little to do with the rhetoric employed by the neocons and the military and Bush about AQ in Iraq.

"The sunni insurgency merged with al Qaeda in many aspects early in the fight, end of 2003."

Utter bullshit. Al Qaeda barely existed in Iraq by end of 2003 - even the main Sunni insurgency didn't hit its stride until later.

I've followed this thing since the invasion itself. I predicted the insurgency on www.iraqwar.ru literally a couple weeks after the invasion ended. You're clueless.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | April 8, 2008 8:24 PM

While many have noted McCain's momentary gaffe of implying that al Qaeda is a Shiite sect, Bayh's implication that Pakistan is an Arab country is being ignored.

BAYH: The Afghanistan and Pakistan are subjects for another day but since this is all tied up in the global effort against extremism and terror, as you know, things have not been going as well as we would hope in Afghanistan. And it is true we're not going to have troops in Pakistan. Still, our resources are finite and they do have an impact. Some might look at this and say why are we devoting five times the amount of resources to a place that at this time is not the principal threat?

CROCKER: In part, Senator, to be sure that it doesn't become that. I noted in my testimony that Osama bin Laden fairly recently referred to Iraq as the perfect base for al Qaeda and it is a reminder that for al Qaeda, having a safe base on Arab soil is extremely important today. They got close to that in '06.

BAYH: They apparently have one now in the tribal areas of Pakistan.

Posted by headland | April 8, 2008 9:26 PM

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | April 8, 2008 8:24 PM

Hey turd brain, you said "By the US military's own estimates, AQI never amounted to more than than about seven percent of the Sunni insurgency."

Which is pretty accurate but completely ignores the fact that those few al Qaeda were the leadership on many fronts and pulled off many of the most spectacular attacks and attacked Sunni and Shia alike to stir the sectarian violence. We even have captured documents that explain their strategy. Having some knowledge of the situation is almost as useless as no understanding, so just save it.

Save your comments and half-baked analysis for Huffington Post. And here is another thought for you, turd brain, if the fighting had nothing to do with al Qaeda, then how come it took several months for it to start?

Let me help you turd brain, because it took until the end of 2003 for al Qaeda to get support established in country, infiltration routes established, and the organization in place to support it. Meanwhile, the Iraqi were already there and did little fighting until 2004.

Use what is left of your turd brain a little bit.

Posted by Ray Robison | April 8, 2008 9:40 PM

"Ray Robinson, it is a matter of record that the public statements by Republican politicians and other war-enablers, specifically for the purpose of propagandizing you, sought to conflate all the insurgents fighting the US troops with "al-qaeda in iraq" and to conflate "al-qaeda in iraq" with "al-qaeda." "
Posted by Tyro | April 8, 2008 6:57 PM

First, thanks for teaching me that "propaganda" is a verb. I have never seen that in the English language. Secondly, I witnessed for myself, working for the Iraqi Survey Group, the overwhelming documentation, including their own videos, that showed al Qaeda was active in Iraq and was behind most of the fighting.

I don't need a politician to tell me what I saw in the raw intelligence, that al Qaeda was the main enemy, not in number, but in threat and committment.

But you go on with your Guy Fox fascination. I bet you think 9/11 was an inside job, right? Go ahead, I know you do, just say it, Bush blew up the WTC.

wackos.....

Posted by Ray Robison | April 8, 2008 9:53 PM

http://www.ctc.usma.edu/harmony/pdf/CTCForeignFighter.19.Dec07.pdf

"Al Qa’ida’s Foreign Fighters in Iraq: A First Look at the Sinjar Records is the latest in a series of reports from the Combating Terrorism Center drawing on newly released information from captured al‐Qa’ida documents maintained in the Defense Department’s Harmony Data Base."

From this report:

"The sheer magnitude of fighters listed in the Sinjar Records challenges Abu Umar al‐Baghdadi’s reassurances that his organization is built on a local foundation.  Although the records are not necessarily inconsistent with his claim that there are only 200 foreign fighters left in Iraq, the scope of al‐Qa’ida’s program to import fighters to Iraq belies his effort to convince Iraqis that the ISI is an inherently Iraqi organizatin.  There is no doubt that al‐Qa’ida’s Iraqi affiliates successfully recruited many Iraqis, but the leadership of both the MSC and the ISI remain largely foreign."

ISI - Islamic state of Iraq, al Qaeda front group. 

Seriously people, you have to get your info from something other than libtard websites.

www.bothinonetrench.com

Posted by Ray Robison | April 8, 2008 10:11 PM

To hum, the School Principal, BFR, and any others I may have missed:

If you truly care about spelling, grammar, and word usage (as opposed, that is, to parading your awesome perfection in language arts before all and sundry), then you would email Matthew quietly and privately to let him know about the mistakes, rather than berating him on his blog. All you accomplish is to embarrass someone who happens to be an excellent writer and political thinker.

I happen to be a copyeditor/proofreader by trade; I have worked freelance and full-time for book publishers for 30 years. I have on occasion emailed bloggers I especially admire to tell them about grammatical or spelling errors. It's *because* I admire them that I tell them. I want their posts to be perfect. If I find such errors in a right-winger's blog posts (and I do, all the time, much more seriously than in any liberal blog I have ever read), I don't tell them privately. Instead, I put [sic] in brackets next to every single error I find, when I quote from them.

If you *like* Matthew's blogging and you share his politics and you appreciate what he does, I really can't even begin to understand why you would want to make such an incredibly huge deal, in public, over homophones.

Posted by Kathy | April 8, 2008 10:38 PM

Robison, you are the turd brain.

Your notion that the Sunni insurgency took until the end of 2003 to get cracking because it was waiting on a bunch of foreign Al Qaeda fighters is so fucking stupid I can't imagine you actually saying it. Everybody with any knowledge of Iraq knows that insurgency started early on and that some of its leaders were known ex-Baathists from Saddam's government. Everybody also knows that numerous ex-Iraqi-military were the early commanders of the Sunni insurgents.

And of course, Al Qaeda had absolutely nothing to do on the Shia side, with Sadr's organization.

Then, at the same time, you admit that Al Qaeda was never the main issue, despite your bullshit about them being "in leadership roles" - which is complete horseshit. Read every single article by reporters who talked to the Sunni insurgents back in 2003 and later, and you will see NO mention of AQI in any way, shape or form. As I said, the leaders were invariably ex-Baathists or or other Sunnis with no known connection to any form of Al Qaeda.

You can cite all the fucking Pentagon crap you want, dude. It's all self-serving horseshit from morons who can't tell one Iraqi from another and that was true from Day One in Iraq and it's STILL true today. At best, the Sinjar records covered a mere 700-odd foreign fighters, which in itself was a small fraction of Al Qaeda in Iraq. AQI itself was never more than a few thousand.

Read this, asshole, and weep:

The Myth of AQI
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2007/0710.tilghman.html

The essential questions are: How large is the presence of AQI, in terms of manpower and attacks instigated, and what role does the group play in catalyzing further violence? For the first question, the military has produced an estimate. In a background briefing this July in Baghdad, military officials said that during the first half of this year AQI accounted for 15 percent of attacks in Iraq. That figure was also cited in the military intelligence report during final preparations for a National Intelligence Estimate in July.

This is the number on which many military experts inside the Beltway rely. Michael O'Hanlon, a senior fellow in foreign policy studies at the Brookings Institution who attended the Baghdad background briefing, explained that he thought the estimate derived from a comprehensive analysis by teams of local intelligence agents who examine the type and location of daily attacks, and their intended targets, and crosscheck that with reports from Iraqi informants and other data, such as intercepted phone calls. "It's a fairly detailed kind of assessment," O'Hanlon said. "Obviously you can't always know who is behind an attack, but there is a fairly systematic way of looking at the attacks where they can begin to make a pretty informed guess."

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."

To describe AQI's presence, intelligence experts cite a spectrum of estimates, ranging from 8 percent to 15 percent. The fact that such "a big window" exists, says Vincent Cannistraro, former chief of the CIA's Counterterrorism Center, indicates that "[those experts] really don't have a very good perception of what is going on."

It's notable that military intelligence reports have opted to cite a figure at the very top of that range. But even the low estimate of 8 percent may be an overstatement, if you consider some of the government's own statistics.

The first instructive set of data comes from the U.S.-sponsored Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. In March, the organization analyzed the online postings of eleven prominent Sunni insurgent groups, including AQI, tallying how many attacks each group claimed. AQI took credit for 10 percent of attacks on Iraqi security forces and Shiite militias (forty-three out of 439 attacks), and less than 4 percent of attacks on U.S. troops (seventeen out of 357). Although these Internet postings should not be taken as proof positive of the culprits, it's instructive to remember that PR-conscious al-Qaeda operatives are far more likely to overstate than understate their role.

When turning to the question of manpower, military officials told the New York Times in August that of the roughly 24,500 prisoners in U.S. detention facilities in Iraq (nearly all of whom are Sunni), just 1,800—about 7 percent—claim allegiance to al-Qaeda in Iraq. Moreover, the composition of inmates does not support the assumption that large numbers of foreign terrorists, long believed to be the leaders and most hard-core elements of AQI, are operating inside Iraq. In August, American forces held in custody 280 foreign nationals—slightly more than 1 percent of total inmates.

The State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR), which arguably has the best track record for producing accurate intelligence assessments, last year estimated that AQI's membership was in a range of "more than 1,000." When compared with the military's estimate for the total size of the insurgency—between 20,000 and 30,000 full-time fighters—this figure puts AQI forces at around 5 percent. When compared with Iraqi intelligence's much larger estimates of the insurgency—200,000 fighters—INR's estimate would put AQI forces at less than 1 percent. This year, the State Department dropped even its base-level estimate, because, as an official explained, "the information is too disparate to come up with a consensus number."

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."

And the rest of the article just BURIES the notion that AQI was ever a significant force and explains why idiots like you made up this horseshit to justify the brain dead notion that Iraq has anything whatever to do with the phony "war on terror".

Don't waste our time here with this ruminant evacuation.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | April 9, 2008 12:53 AM

For Richard "Turd Brain" Steven Hack:

I give you studies by leading military intelligence institution using raw data captured in Iraq and you give me a news article from the Washington Monthly. Pretty much sums it up. No need for me to continue to contest your lunacy.

But for the record, that article argues what I have already conceded, the foreign fighter component of and the insurgency in general was a relatively small percentage of the insurgency.

However, just as the Combating Terrorism Center finds, al Qaeda was the bulk of the leadership of the insurgency, is the most dangerous portion of the insurgency, has a strategy of destablizing the country by fostering sectarian violence, AQI is not a home grown group, is composed of many foreign fighters (jihadis), has the most extremist ideology, and AQI did fight in coordination with the Baathist insurgency multiplying its affect.

But in your analysis, there is only one variable that matters - number of fighters. Apparently there is some magical number, magical percentage that a fighting force must attain as a component of the overall battlefield presence to be the most dangerous force. I don't know where that number lies for you, but I don't really care since it is such an absurd premise.

Maybe, you should go watch 300.

Bye turd brain.

Posted by Ray Robison | April 9, 2008 11:01 AM

Ray Robison--
Good posts. Thanks.

It's extremely difficult to overcome the political bias on display here with actual data and analysis that strives for objectivity.

It's a dirty, thankless job, but somebody has to do it.

Posted by Robert Powell | April 10, 2008 4:46 AM