Kurds: Fallujah assault only scattered foe

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.suntimes.com/output/iraq/cst-nws-iside21.html

SULAYMANIYAH, Iraq -- For six weeks, the U.S. military pounded Fallujah in an effort to crush the core of Iraq's insurgency -- and kill or capture its leader, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

But two top Kurdish intelligence officers say that even before the campaign destroyed that base, insurgents were scattering, evolving into dozens of cells determined to disrupt security ahead of the country's election -- with or without Zarqawi.

The two, who have interrogated dozens of insurgents, say that to catch Zarqawi and his followers, the U.S. and Iraqi militaries will have to launch a broader counterinsurgency campaign than the one in Fallujah.

"The important thing is to do something beyond one or two concentrated operations," says Dana Ahmed Majid, head of security for the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan. "It has to be something broader, with its own special program and focus. It needs to work on economic, political, social and ideological fronts."

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[LynnTheDem]

1. The KURDS hate Iraqis, so gee what a surprise them telling the US to kill

more widely.

[Tempest]

2. The Kurds have replaced Chalabi

As a source of misinformation.

[LynnTheDem]

4. The Kurds WERE Chalabi to a very large extent.

A whole lot of the misinformation (ie LIES) given to the CIA were from Kurds.

And the CIA, to their credit, called them as LIES. But bush's OSP cherry-picked the lies back out and presented them as facts.

What I really find incredibly ironic is the FACT that the Kurds are aligned with IRAN. They always have been.

Yet the rightwingnuts will swallow every word the Kurds utter...and call every Iranian a liar. Amazing.

[grumpy old fart]

5. Yep...the Kurds just want their own country, as they have for centuries...

They are about as Iraqi as the IRA are British.

[LynnTheDem]

7. I wish they could have their own country

WITHOUT the eruption of civil war from Turkey that would cause. What a total frigging mess. :(

[grumpy old fart]

8. Kurds would be up for it, but not us. We want them part of "our" Iraq.

It's all about the oil, as usual.

[grumpy old fart]

9. Kurds are for themselves, first, last and always. As they should be.

We just keep getting played by every interest in the region, out of our lust for oil.

[pinerow]

3. We have to destroy Iraq in order to save it...sheesh!!!

nt

[frankieT]

6. how ironic

Kurds who suffered different kinds of repression in the region are now giving advices on counter-insurgency techniques...