Saddam 'not organising' Iraqi anti-US resistance

[BurtWorm]

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=460259


By Patrick Cockburn in Baghdad

04 November 2003

A senior Iraqi official said yesterday there was no truth in claims by the Pentagon that Saddam Hussein and Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, one of his aides, were orchestrating anti-US resistance in Iraq.

In an interview with The Independent, the official - a veteran opposition leader to the former Iraqi regime now working for the Governing Council, who did not want his name published - believed the organisers of the resistance came from "the middle levels of the Baath party". He said: "Saddam Hussein is not able to communicate effectively because he is in hiding, so he could not organise a guerrilla campaign."

In response to criticism that the US military has no idea who had carried out the attack on al-Rashid Hotel in Baghdad last week and other assaults on US troops, high-level US officials said Saddam was playing a role in the resistance.

US officials also claimed that Izzat Ibrahim, former chairman of the Revolution Command Council, was co-ord- inating links between the resistance and al-Qa'ida. However, the Iraqi official said: "Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri is old and sick, and not capable of co-ordinating anything. He was almost captured twice in Mosul because he needs to have dialysis regularly. In any case, he was never that important under Saddam Hussein."

Izzat Ibrahim is known to be suffering from leukaemia.

[tsipple]

1. Oh, Well, That's a Relief

Ahmed Chalabi, another (the same?) "opposition leader," has been so accurate so far in his assessments, hasn't he?

Either way, though, I'm sure our soldiers will appreciate that, while still being shot, at least they aren't being shot under the direction of Saddam Hussein.

[The Backlash Cometh]

2. Message to Bush:

It's the earned hatred, stupid.

Personally, I think the Iraqi people have had enough of our goodwill. You don't go into a country and kill as many civilians as we have killed without earning yourself some well-deserved resentment. Bush can try to hide those civilian casualty numbers from us, but he can't hide them from the Iraqi people. That is the reality our boys are dealing with.

[Kinkistyle]

3. I think its the new Mujahedeen

Just like the Americans are taking the fight to the "terrorists" the "terrorists" are taking the fight to the Americans -- in a place where the U.S. can still actually make a difference when it "bombs the place back to the Stone Age", unlike Afghanistan. A country with big cities like Baghdad with millions of people, where there (used to be) a middle class. Bombs can't be used in a city with lots of innocent civilians, and if they are, the civilians will eventually not want to be so innocent any longer.