US/IRAQ: Washington's lack of planning for the insurgency has stretched US military forces in several ways and reconstruction is stalled, writes Michael Jansen.
The brutal slaughter yesterday of 50 unarmed Iraqi national guardsman marked an escalation of the campaign waged by insurgents against Iraqis considered to be collaborating with foreign forces occupying the country.
The well-planned operation was patterned on an attack carried out on October 11th on a minibus filled with police trainees returning home after completing a course and reveals that the rebels have good intelligence on training facilities and the movements of personnel.
On Saturday, 20 security men were killed in two separate attacks at Ramadi and Samarra, making last weekend one of the most costly since the US began reconstituting the country's security forces. Iraqi national guards, police, and recruiting offices became primary objectives when militants began staging organised operations in mid-2003. Attacks on these and other targets were stepped up during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan last year.
A second Ramadan offensive could now be taking place.
The Pentagon estimated in November 2003 there were some 5,000 fighters in Iraqi resistance and foreign Islamist groupings. However, the Brookings Institution, a US think-tank, estimates that 24,000 fighters were either detained or killed between May 2003 and August 2004. This suggests that the original estimate was too low. By September of this year the Pentagon's figure was 20,000, including hard-core guerrilla cadres and supporters.
But Maj Gen Andrew Graham, the British deputy commander of foreign forces in Iraq, stated in a recent Time magazine interview that the resistance could be 40,000-50,000 strong.
Furthermore, it has become clear that the majority of fighters are Iraqis.
Of the 2,700 attacks mounted in August on US and Iraqi targets, only half a dozen headline-grabbing events were claimed by Washington's enemy-number-one in Iraq, the Jordanian Islamist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who has a reward of $25 million on his head.
Among the 9,000-odd Iraqis currently held in US prisons only a few score are foreigners. The International Institute of Strategic Studies put the number of foreign fighters at 1,000 in its annual review of the world's military forces.
The failure of the US military to secure arms dumps and arsenals provided opponents with all the weaponry they could use and the demobilisation of 400,000 soldiers in the Iraqi army produced a huge pool of recruits for resistance groups.
The US and the interim Iraqi government have not offered alternative employment for the tens of thousands of former soldiers, deepening alienation and anger and prompting many to join the 50-odd secular nationalist and Islamist resistance formations.
US officials claim that these groups are well funded by an underground network of former Baathists who transmit cash through Syria, which denies this allegation.
Other sources are said to include wealthy Saudis and Islamic charitable institutions.
Some Iraqi factions appear to have adopted kidnapping, beheading and suicide bomb attacks used elsewhere by foreign militants. Iraqi analysts argue that none of these practices occurred in Iraq before the US occupation.
"Ansar al-Sunna" (the Brotherhood of the Practices of the Prophet) and the Islamic Army, which may have foreign members, seem to have been competing in recent months with Zarqawi's Tawhid wal-Jihad (Monotheism and Holy War), notorious for its cruel kidnappings and beheadings of foreigners which are meant to project the struggle in Iraq into the international media with the aim of ending the involvement of external forces, contractors, and businessmen in the US enterprise in Iraq.
Washington's lack of planning for the insurgency has stretched US military forces in Iraq in several ways. US troops have had their deployment extended. Over-used vehicles and equipment break down and require spare parts and early replacement. Supply lines are disrupted, depriving forces of essentials.
Resistance has stalled reconstruction. Iraqis do not see improvements on the ground and no longer believe the US can deliver security, electricity, clean water, and jobs. As a result, the US is losing the support of the populace. A survey published last Friday revealed that the approval rating of the US-backed Iraqi government has dropped from 62 to 43 per cent since taking office at the end of June.