One reporter asked Secretary Gates and General Pace this exact question:
Mr. Secretary, increasingly we're hearing how the enemy in Iraq is described as al Qaeda extremists, with less of an emphasis on militias and sectarian-driven violence. Is this an effort to redefine the mission or redefine what it's going to take for victory?
Gates replies:
I think it's a -- to a considerable extent, an outgrowth of the enemy that the forces, for example, fighting in Diyala are actually encountering. Most of what -- most of the combat, and you correct me if I get this wrong, that we're seeing in this surge in operations is against al Qaeda. And they have found -- I think it was in Baqubah -- where al Qaeda had actually become entrenched. And they found operating rooms and courtrooms and jails and so on, so it was pretty well-established. And that's what was going on in Anbar before our successes out there.
So I think that it really is more a reflection of the enemy that we're facing and where we're having -- most of the combat operations are in fact right now against al Qaeda. It is also true, I believe, that it is al Qaeda that has done the most in terms of trying to stoke sectarian violence, from the bombing of the Samarra mosque a year ago February to the second bombing of the mosque just a couple of weeks ago, and to try and provoke exactly the kind of reaction that happened after February of last year. So I think that at least in terms of the combat operations that we're conducting now, the principal enemy that they are facing is in fact al Qaeda.
Not that our military claims that this is the exclusive target of the current surge offensive (with Baathists and Sadrists targets as well), but the Left likes to say that Iraq is a distraction against fighting al Qaeda. And as ridiculous as the whole "distraction" claim is, admitting that we are fighting al Qaeda in Iraq makes even this silly claim rather obviously wrong. So they can't admit we fight al Qaeda in Iraq.
Ah, the birth of another Plastic Turkey issue! How exciting!
But is it even wrong to say that al Qaeda is more of a threat in Iraq now than a couple years ago?
No. Al Qaeda is in fact a bigger part of the enemy now. Early on, the jihadis were only a few percent of the total. Maybe 600 imported jihadis out of 20,000 insurgents.
Back in November I started to notice a figure of 10,000 cited when discussing enemy strength.
In January, I read that we think there are 10,000 Sunni insurgents and 1,300 jihadis. I'm not sure if the latter is a subset of the former or not. I think it was supposed to mean that.
With the Baathists clearly losing and Sunni Arabs fleeing Iraq, Sunni insurgent numbers naturally would decline. Plus, the more jihadi minded of the local Sunni Arabs started to gravitate toward al Qaeda.
And in March, McCaffrey had his own report that in part demonstrated the difficulties of definitions and determining insurgent strength. (Like counting Pesh Merga who are fighting on our side as part of the insurgent/illegal militia problem!)
But one part of interest is that he says that 500 of the enemy are foreign jihadis and 2,000 are local al Qaeda. That's 2,500. From a few percent of the enemy a few years ago, al Qaeda now is perhaps 20% to a quarter of the enemy. The foreigners are pretty static but al Qaeda has recruited the local Islamo-fascists away from the Baathists. And the al Qaeda types are more willing to slaughter civilians so the bloodshed is up even as enemy numbers are declining.
So talking about fighting al Qaeda more would make sense given the trend in Iraq.
This also has the effect of making the remaining Baathists more willing to turn on the jihadis. Witness the defections of Anbar and now central Iraq Sunni Arabs.
So there is no conspiracy to pretend we are fighting al Qaeda in Iraq. They were there before the invasion and have succeeded in recruiting more inside Iraq as the other Sunni Arabs lose their fight to regain power.
And so we are fighting al Qaeda today, notwithstanding the protests of the "reality-based community."
If there is a civil war in Iraq, it is the civil war within Islam playing out inside Iraq with Iraqis the bloody props and victims of a global schism between Shias and Sunnis and within each community.
