Reply #136: meh [View All]

[clu]

Most of you know all of this, but I said I'd post it so here it is.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/iraq_insurgency.htm

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It is reported that fewer than 250 of the 9,000 detainees in US custody as of late August 2003 were foreign nationals. This suggests that either the bulk of the attackers are Iraqi, or that the bulk of the detainees were common Iraqi criminals rather than guerilla combatants.
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http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0712/p01s04-woiq.html

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Officials at the Iraqi Ministry of Interior say they're mulling terms of an amnesty for Iraq's insurgents. "We are having a dialogue with some of the important figures in Fallujah,'' says Interior Minister Falah Hassan al-Nagib. "We know there are some splits in the city. We think that most of the trouble is being created by foreigners there."

Nonetheless, other interior ministry officials say the overwhelming majority of fighters in their custody are Iraqis, including four men held for with beheading American Nicholas Berg in May.

US and Iraqi officials say Fallujah has become a haven for the country's tiny cohort of foreign fighters, and it's turning out local Iraqis committed to establishing an Islamic state. While the popularity of such views is limited, having established a beachhead with relative impunity has strengthened their movement.
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http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2004-07-05-noniraqi-captives_x.htm

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In recent months, however, it has become clear that the insurgents are overwhelmingly Iraqis. Foreign nationals account for fewer than 100 of the 5,700 prisoners being held by coalition forces in Iraq as security concerns, according to figures supplied by the military.
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http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/world/9205941.htm?1c

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Exactly how many insurgents there are is unknown, though analysts in Iraq say Washington's insistence that they number no more than 5,000 is unrealistic. Just as unrealistic, experts in Iraq say, is Washington's portrait of the insurgency as a force led by foreign fighters. In truth, these experts say, Sunnis are driving the fight to end the occupation.
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http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/07/18/1090089035893.html?oneclick=true

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A more realistic picture of the insurgency is emerging. US and Iraqi officials have consistently portrayed it as the foreign supporters of al-Qaeda and so-called Saddam "dead enders", thereby bolstering their argument that Iraq is rightly a part of the war on terror.

But since taking office Iyad Allawi has acknowledged that a significant number of those resisting are secular and nationalist Iraqis angered by the US military presence in Iraq; and recently senior American officials in Iraq have acknowledged for the first time that the make-up and number of insurgents "mean they cannot be defeated militarily".

Putting its numbers at about 20,000, way higher than the usual analysts' estimates of about 5000, a US military officer told the Associated Press earlier this month there was enough popular support among nationalist-minded Iraqis to sustain the insurgents.
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