Iraq and Afghanistan

It now appears that the insurgency in Iraq was actually planned before the war with some care by a division of Hussein’s intelligence service. Before the war started they had positioned weapons and munitions in hidden locations, in farms and so forth. At the beginning of the war Saddam told his people that if they held the Americans for a week he would carry on from there. His confidence was based on the idea that whatever happened, the Iraqis would never submit to an occupation force (there had been some evidence for this in Iraqi history). Apparently, Saddam was both confused and clever in his war preparations. he had convinced some of his officers and the Americans that if the attackers went beyond a certain line in their approach top Baghdad, that he would use chemical weapons. But he had also admitted to others before the war that he did not have any chemical weapons.

In any event, the insurgency has been surprisingly persistent and innovative. Although Saddam and the Baath had a plan, the insurgents actually represent at least four types of fighters. The first are simply the disaffected and the revenge seeking (“They killed my relative, I must get back at them”. ) The second is the Shi’a resistance, based on the idea of resisting the infidels OR on the idea of improving the position of a particular group of Shi’as after the Americans leave (Mahdi Army and al-Sadr). The third is the Jihadist or Mujahedin element, fighting the “crusaders” in the name of Islam. Some of these are outsiders such as Zarqawi, but remember the Ansar, routed in Kurdistan but settled elsewhere now, are extremist Kurds, not foreigners. Many Jihadists see themselves as linked to al-Qaida, at least spiritually. Whether there is more than that we do not know. They probably represent many groups large and small, with varying degrees of linkage to one another. Finally, there are the Saddam or Baath loyalists. Initially they had the most money and access to the most arms. They were certainly the best trained element. One can assume that they have tried to direct the effort. They may have coordinated their efforts to give the impression of a more united national movement. But actually, the insurgents are harder to defeat if they work separately, for with so many diverse groups the gathering of intelligence from captured individuals is much less fruitful than it would otherwise be. We think of this group as Sunni and most of their activity has been in the Sunni triangle (although one suspects they are also in Basra and other urban centers outside the triangle). We must remember that some Baath leaders were actually Shi’as, such as Allawi himself before he fell out with Saddam. These were secular people for whom sectarian allegiances were useful but not essential.