LTG Odierno explains the collapse of the Baathist-based insurgency:
General, it's Jamie McIntyre with CNN. I noticed that when you talk about the -- particularly in your beginning -- opening comments, you talked about the enemy you're dealing with, you primarily talked about al Qaeda. I'm just curious about what -- what is the overall relative strength of al Qaeda that you're fighting there, as opposed to other, Iraqi insurgents? And how does that compare to -- we hear a lot here in Washington about the growing -- al Qaeda's effort to reconstitute itself. How does the strength of al Qaeda today in Iraq -- and I don't mean necessarily the organization but al Qaeda there -- compare to, say, a year ago or whatever time frame you think is relative, in terms of how their relative strength is?
LT. GEN. ODIERNO: Yeah. Well, first I would say that -- I know there's been a lot of conversation about, you know, al Qaeda's -- insurgency, Shi'a extremists. What I have seen is a significant reduction in the Sunni insurgency, and that's why we're not talking about it as much.
It's not completely clean, because there is still some Sunni insurgency out there. But what we are seeing is those who are know saying, we want to work with the coalition and the Iraqi security forces, and that's through reconciliation. And then there are some of those who have moved towards al Qaeda, and so it's become a little bit clearer than it was before.
It's not completely clean. There are still some insurgent groups out there, and I would never say there's not. But that's kind of what we're seeing. It's kind of a split that's occurred where they've kind of -- they're starting to go either one way or the other. And that's why we tend to talk to al Qaeda because -- and that's why we -- you know, so what we're seeing is it's -- the al Qaeda safe havens have been significantly reduced. Their areas where they're able to operate have been reduced.
The numbers -- the reason I don't like to talk numbers when it comes to al Qaeda -- because you have the al Qaeda foreign membership that's come in, which I believe has been significantly reduced. You have some of the Iraqis that joined al Qaeda several years ago and that are still supporting al Qaeda in some number. And then you have a very -- a passive number of Iraqis that might support al Qaeda out of intimidation and fear. And what we've seen the change be is -- in many areas we've eliminated the intimidation and fear by chasing al Qaeda out. So once we do that, they are fully supportive of the Iraqi security forces, coalition force and in fact tend to want to fight al Qaeda themselves.
So that's why I don't like to get into numbers. But what I will say is the effectiveness and size of al Qaeda is -- has gotten smaller. I think the leadership has been somewhat fractured. I believe that the -- it is becoming more and more difficult for them to operate, as I said in my comments. That does not mean they cannot still operate, but it's becoming more difficult for them. There's less and less terrain for them to operate from and to conduct attacks.
This is what I was discussing in the first post about how al Qaeda is a bigger part of the enemy inside Iraq:
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.
We are finally seeing the concrete results of hints that the Sunni Arabs were breaking at the beginning of the year.
Plus, if the jihadis are running out of leadership-caliber jihadis and losing territory they can hide in, the jihadis themselves who split from the wobbly Sunni Arabs are themselves going down to defeat. This will accelerate the movement of other Sunni Arabs to the government.
And we seem to be blunting the Shia fanatics while we grind down the Sunni Arabs (jihadis and nationalists).
While I remain worried that progress will be slow, I cannot rule out that victory will be sudden. If we remain steadfast in pursuing victory, of course.
