July 9, 200421 yr From AP via ABCnews A good synopsis for people who didn't think the official numbers added up right. If the insurgents only numbered around 4,000 as the US military has officially reported, and we killed around 4,000 insurgents in April alone, that should have effectively put down the insurgency. The upshot of the piece is that too much has been made of the foriegn Islamic jihadist role in the insurgency, and a lot of it is Sunnis ticked off about losing power in the new Iraq and some well trained Saddam secret service survivors running the show. Troubling is that US military analysts have "learned that ridding Iraq of U.S. troops was the motivator for most insurgents, not the formation of an Islamic state." What is the right solution to any of this? I sure wish I knew. From the article... Civilian analysts generally agreed, saying U.S. and Iraqi officials have long overemphasized the roles of foreign fighters and Muslim extremists. Such positions support the Bush administration's view that the insurgency is linked to the war on terror. A closer examination paints most insurgents as secular Iraqis angry at the presence of U.S. and other foreign troops. "Too much U.S. analysis is fixated on terms like 'jihadist,' just as it almost mindlessly tries to tie everything to (Osama) bin Laden," Cordesman said. "Every public opinion poll in Iraq ... supports the nationalist character of what is happening."
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