Prior to the invasion of Iraq, Saddam made a vow to give us a “war like no other”. When he made those claims, many in the U.S. laughed at him. After our quick storm to Baghdad, those laughs got louder. Now we find out Saddam may have been speaking the truth:
The Iraqi government’s list of the 41 most wanted fugitives suggests that former members of Saddam Hussein’s regime form the backbone of the insurgency despite attention paid to the role of religious extremists such as al-Qaida in Iraq.
The list, released last weekend, includes at least 21 former regime figures, among them Saddam’s chief lieutenant, his wife, eldest daughter, two nephews and a cousin — allegedly financiers of the insurgency.
Only five of the 41 names are clearly identified as members of al-Qaida’s local branch.
That reinforces the impression shared by a number of analysts that ex-Baath party members and former regime figures still play a key role in the insurgency.
“I believe that former regime members form 40 to 50 percent of the insurgency,” said Diaa Rashwan, an Egyptian expert on militant groups. “Operations by al-Qaida and the Mujahedeen Shura Council make between five to 10 percent only, a maximum of 10 percent.”
Now let’s go back a year ago when Rumsfeld appeared on Meet the Press and had this to say:
SEC’Y RUMSFELD: Well, you never know what’s going to happen. I presented the president a list of about 15 things that could go terribly, terribly wrong before the war started. And the fact that the oil fields could have been set aflame like they were in Kuwait, the fact that we could have had mass refugees and dislocations and it didn’t happen. The bridges could have been blown up. There could have been a fortress Baghdad where the moat around it with oil in it and people fighting to the death. So a great many of the bad things that could have happened did not happen because of the terrific job that General Franks and his team did.
I think that the people who had been repressed by the Saddam Hussein regime did, in fact, feel a great relief when Saddam was gone, particularly the Shia who the Saddam Hussein regime killed hundreds of thousands of these people. He used chemicals on the Kurds. I mean, this is not a nice man who’s in jail and going to be tried later on. On the other hand, the people who lost out, the Sunnis, didn’t like it, and you’re quite right. They did not greet our people as liberators and they’re still fighting today.
MR. RUSSERT: Was a robust insurgency on your list that you gave the president?
SEC’Y RUMSFELD: I don’t remember whether that was on there, but certainly it was discussed the possibility that you could have dead-enders who would fight. In fact, the Fedayeen Saddam did that during the course of the battle in getting up to Baghdad. They occupied the churches and the mosques. They occupied the schools and the hospitals and they tried to fight to the death and they tried to kill Iraqis that tried to cooperate with the United States and the coalition forces coming in.
Now it looks like Saddam and his followers are the masterminds behind the insurgency. What is even more damaging to the administration is their claim that al Qaeda plays a big role in the insurgency – this proves they don’t. What we have is another war, even more alienated from the original “war on terror” that is tying up our military and resources and all of this is happening as North Korea launches missiles.
It is amazing when you sit back and think about how much this administration has totally screwed up on everything. They have screwed up the war on terror, Iraq, our position as a world leader, and now North Korea. This is just foreign screw-ups. How much longer can people go on defending Bush and his failed policies?