Power Vacuum
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A14024-2003Nov7.htmlTHULUIYA, Iraq, Nov. 7 -- American troops patrol less frequently, townspeople openly threaten Iraqi security personnel who cooperate with U.S. forces, and the night belongs to the guerrillas.
This is the reality in this little town 60 miles north of Baghdad, U.S. and Iraqi officials say, and it reflects a shifting balance of power in U.S.-occupied central Iraq. Resistance forces move with impunity in Thuluiya and throughout the so-called Sunni Triangle, despite repeated raids on suspected hide-outs and arms caches.
Since June, when attacks on U.S. forces began in earnest, the average number of ambushes has more than doubled, soaring from about 12 a day to 37 in late October before falling to 29 last week, according to Col. William Darley, an Army spokesman.
Today in Tikrit, 45 miles west of here, for the second time in a week, guerrillas shot down a U.S. helicopter. Despite the immediate appearance of airborne reinforcements, the perpetrators escaped.
There is a growing power vacuum in central Iraq, where support for Saddam Hussein was strongest and where much of the population depended on jobs in his government and vast security apparatus and on the favored political status he accorded to the country's Sunni Muslims. The danger of permitting this wide-open state to persist, Iraqi officials say, is that it will spread and increase the confidence of enemies of the occupation.
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Just the way you planned it, eh, Rummy? Let them get over-confident, right?