Yet something is going on. I noted that it seemed like the enemy was operating in bigger groups and it seemed to me that it might have been for the purpose of an Iraqi Tet.
I was right to see this as different. This article notes the bigger concentrations:
Senior officers say the increased pressure on insurgents is driving many of them out of safe houses in cities like Mosul, Samarra and Baghdad, and into the desert. Senior officials say it is notable, although not clearly understood, how the insurgency seems to be moving in more of a set-piece fashion than it did in its early period.
The Abu Ghraib attacks, for example, were coordinated, small-unit strikes by 40 to 60 insurgents, though they were largely ineffective, officers say.
"At this point, we are all concerned they may be changing tactics," Brig. Gen. John DeFreitas III, the senior military intelligence officer in Iraq, said in an interview. "It's still too early to tell."
So what is going on? Why is the enemy operating in "more of a set-piece fashion" in platoon-sized units? Are they preparing to attack big and only my guess on timing was wrong?
Or is insurgent infighting the reason? Are some insurgents taking refuge in the countryside because the cities are no longer havens?
It seems logical to me that the insurgents would try to reverse their recent losses by attempting a widespread attack (in the Sunni areas anyway) that might shock the US into withdrawing before the Iraqi government forces are ready. An attack that would shock the Iraqi public out of their growing support for a free Iraq. The insurgents failed before our elections . They failed before the Iraqi elections . And they still haven't made the effort.
At this point it may be a question of timing. The insurgents could still be planning something. But if no offensive takes place over the next several months, we may have to consider whether the insurgents are simply incapable of such an offensive to reverse the trends toward victory that we see.
I still smell a grenade. Something different is going on.
