Bush Told in Baghdad (Iraq): Guerrillas Taking Heavy Losses, Retreating from Sunni Triangle (Debka)

Debka ^ | Nov. 30, 2003 | Debka

[FairOpinion]

Secret progress report handed Bush in Baghdad Thursday discloses Saddam guerrillas taking heavy losses – totaling 1,100 men equal to one-fifth of their strength – and in retreat from Sunni Triangle. Fearing US may opt for three-state solution Iraqi insurgents extend warfare to Kurdish and Shiite regions

US ground forces commander in Iraq, Lt.-Gen. Ricardo Sanchez suffered the misfortune of mistimed optimism. Saturday, November 29, he told a news briefing that the number of Iraqi attacks had dropped by 30 percent in November. No sooner had a spoken then a succession of five deadly ambushes left 12 non-Americans, one American civilian and two 3rd Armored Divisions troops dead between Saturday and Sunday morning. Seven were members of an 8-member Spanish Intelligence team on the road from Najef to Baghdad, two Japanese diplomats who had just left Tikrit after attending a reconstruction aid conference, two Korean electricians in the same region, one American civilian and one Colombian contractor near Balad.

The American fatalities were claimed by a rocket-propelled grenade attack on their convoy near the Iraqi-Syrian border town of Husaybah.

In just a few hours, November’s death toll in Iraq shot up to 115, the highest since May.

Still, Gen. Sanchez was technically correct. November saw 30pc less attacks by Iraqi insurgents and their foreign helpers. On the other hand, it was the bloodiest in terms of coalition casualties - up 35pc – meaning enemy assaults were fewer but more effective.

DEBKAfile’s military sources reveal that of the two hours, 32 minutes President George W. Bush spent in Baghdad on his surprise Thanksgiving trip last Thursday, November 27, he visited the troops for one hour. Away from the cameras, he was closeted very privately for another hour with US and military commanders in Iraq and the remaining half hour with four members of the interim Iraq Governing Council.

Given the news of the 30pc decline in guerilla attacks in November, Bush was also handed four intelligence assessments recording shifts in the Iraqi-US balance. They are revealed here for the first time by DEBKAfile’s military sources:

1. Iraqi guerrilla commanders find it much harder to execute their original hit-and-run tactics against large American military convoys which are now much better defended, often with air cover. Small convoys, lone vehicles and soft targets are easier prey.

2. US forces are now capturing Iraqi and foreign fighters in large numbers. In recent weeks, more than 1,100 have been killed or captured in US military raids, draining off around one-fifth of the total estimated pro-Saddam strength of 5,000 fighting men.

3. Iraqi insurgent forces used the just-ended Ramadan month to regroup and review strategy and are now striving for two objectives: a) creating a sympathetic base among the general population to support combatants; b) relocating their flashpoint center out of the Sunni Triangle - where the US 4th Division has gained familiarity with the territory and the forces fighting there - to the Kurdish and Shiite regions of the north and center-south.

The US President also heard that pro-Saddam tacticians found it necessary to reorient their confrontation with US forces because they are worried by the progress made in the two outer regions towards firm local government institutions and systems, unlike the battle-torn Sunni area north of Baghdad. They fear Washington might turn away from a unified Iraq and opt for a three-state solution. The Kurdish and the Shiite states would end up with Iraq’s oil riches. The US would dump the Sunni state and redeploy in defensive array in the other two.

This fear was exacerbated by an article that Saddam Hussein and his men, who though on the run, must have heard about.

”Divide Iraq into Three States – Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds” is the title of the article appearing in The New York Times article of November 26, the day before Thanksgiving. It was written by Leslie Gelb, president emeritus of the influential Council of Foreign Relations, and looks like a trial balloon by the Bush administration to see how the concept of partition goes down with American, Arab and European opinion.

4. Saddam Hussein’s supporters are also worried about developments unfolding in two key regions of the country:

Mosul: Former Iraqi defense minister Gen. Sultan Hashem, who is reported to have played ball with the Americans since well before the invasion, has obeyed the promptings of US administrator Paul Bremer and gone back to his Tai tribe – a large and important group that is spread out in territory ranging from Mosul in the east to the Iraqi-Syrian border in the west. Sections of important oil pipelines run through these lands. The Tai and other tribes in this area are not on good terms with the Sunni tribes of the Tikrit-Falluja region, the backbone of Saddam’s following. It is hoped that ex-general Hashem will help US efforts to stabilize this key strategic region. According to DEBKAfile’s military sources, other Sunni tribes have also been conscripted by means of substantial cash incentives and promises of more to come for security maintenance of the oil pipe network running through their lands.

South and Shiite Region: The US administration has managed to rein in the most unstable Shiite element, the fiery young Seyed Moqtada Sadr, the boss of the Shiite quarters of Baghdad who spearheaded the opposition to Shiite leaders cooperating with the Americans. Bremer has cultivated friendly relations with the two most eminent Shiite leaders, the Grand Ayatollah Sistani and Mohsein al-Hakim, the Shiite representative on the interim Governing Council. Both have acquired an interest in keeping the American civilian and military presence in the country for as long as possible.

While the US President was encouraged by the progress report he received during his brief stay at Baghdad airport, as soon as he left, Saddam’s guerrilla forces redoubled their offensive. Two days later, on Saturday, November 29, they singled out targets near the Iraqi-Syrian border and around the Shiite holy city of Najef, as well as the Sunni Triangle, to demonstrate the lengthened extent of their reach. On the last day of November, US forces struck a counter-blow to even the score. Men of a 4th infantry division convoy armed with heavy tanks and helicopters confronted Saddam’s guerrillas ready to mount an ambush in Samara. They killed 46 guerrillas and captured eight, losing five American wounded.

[Enterprise]

Whenever our allies are killed, and we are able to determine who did it and capture those responsible, we should immediately hand them over to the country that suffered the loss. Especially South Korea.

[GreenHornet]

Thanks for the background info on Debka. Since people here have very strong feelings (pro or con) regarding the validity of reports attributed to Debka, I've been curious about this source. I'll follow your suggestion and check it out.

[mikenola]

Sometimes you don't need the full 10-day forecast, you just need to know which way the wind is blowing.

I think DEBKA is useful for that, just don't take it as gospel. It's similar to the "Washington Whispers" type columns that run in major newspapers. Just a rough sketch.

Personally, I tend to take the Israelis pretty serious when it comes to terrorism issues, they have more experience than anyone around.

[FairOpinion]

"Whenever our allies are killed, and we are able to determine who did it and capture those responsible, we should immediately hand them over to the country that suffered the loss. Especially South Korea."

==

Yes -- that would serve them right.

BTW -- Al Jazeera is already starting about the "innocents" killed -- the Dems are going to pick this up any minute now.

Innocents killed in Samarra bloodbath
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/E56B8E35-2484-40C5-935E-B452A2C74769.htm

"But local residents said US troops killed innocent bystanders when they opened fire on anything that moved around midday."


If we did kill "innocent bystanders" -- their blood should be on the heads of the terrorists who attacked us, while innocent bystanders were around, not on our heads, for defending ourselves.

Even Al Jazeera includes in their article:

"The attackers fired rocket-propelled grenades and automatic weapons at the convoy from rooftops of buildings and from the alleyways," said MacDonald, adding that mortars and improvised bombs also were used against the US soldiers. "

What were we supposed to do, just let ourselves be massacred? Not to mention, that the terrorist attackers do not pay much attention to innocent bystanders -- and even in this case, it may well be that they killed them, not we.

[livius]

It's the way Neal Boortz describes his program - don't believe it unless you check it out.

However, most people who have a reasonable idea (from other sources) of what's going on will know enough to verify Debka.

Personally, I have found Debka to be pretty reasonable, and as someone pointed out, a lot of the info is corroborated - much later. I find that it tends to "project" information a bit more than it should. That is, it takes a fact and runs with it to conclusions that don't happen - but I think it's a worthwhile source. And nothing in this article seems unreasonable, and in fact, much of it has already been reported elsewhere.

[prairiebreeze]

Al Jazeera is already starting about the "innocents" killed -- the Dems are going to pick this up any minute now.

My, that didn't take long, did it. The DNC is receiving it's talking points from it's Arab chapter I see. Changing tag lines...

Prairie

[Dave Elias]

One might easily say the same about Israel. It too is a contrived country, again a British concoction.

[FairOpinion]

Apparently it IS being discussed quietly. I personally see both pluses and minuses and don't know how it would ultimately play out, but it's a possibility worth considering.

Gelb wrote an article in the NY Times about it, Nov. 25.

The Three-State Solution
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/25/opinion/25GELB.html

The only viable strategy, then, may be to correct the historical defect and move in stages toward a three-state solution: Kurds in the north, Sunnis in the center and Shiites in the south.

Almost immediately, this would allow America to put most of its money and troops where they would do the most good quickly — with the Kurds and Shiites. The United States could extricate most of its forces from the so-called Sunni Triangle, north and west of Baghdad, largely freeing American forces from fighting a costly war they might not win. American officials could then wait for the troublesome and domineering Sunnis, without oil or oil revenues, to moderate their ambitions or suffer the consequences.

This three-state solution has been unthinkable in Washington for decades. After the Iranian revolution in 1979, a united Iraq was thought necessary to counter an anti-American Iran. Since the gulf war in 1991, a whole Iraq was deemed essential to preventing neighbors like Turkey, Syria and Iran from picking at the pieces and igniting wider wars.

But times have changed. The Kurds have largely been autonomous for years, and Ankara has lived with that. So long as the Kurds don't move precipitously toward statehood or incite insurgencies in Turkey or Iran, these neighbors will accept their autonomy. It is true that a Shiite self-governing region could become a theocratic state or fall into an Iranian embrace. But for now, neither possibility seems likely.

[Dave Elias]

If we did kill "innocent bystanders" -- their blood should be on the heads of the terrorists who attacked us, while innocent bystanders were around, not on our heads, for defending ourselves.

Terrorists? The fact they are primarily targetting foreign troopers makes them sound like guerillas.

[Jim Noble]

One might easily say the same about Israel. It too is a contrived country, again a British concoction

It remains to be seen whether the Jews will defend Israel, or not.

But their nationhood is not in doubt. An Israeli Jew is not at all like an "Iraqi" or a "Pakistani".

If Syria took over the Sunni triangle tomorrow, by Wednesday the "Iraqis" would be Syrians. If Syria took over Israel tomorrow, in a thousand years the surviving Jews, if any, would still be the people of Israel.

[zencat]

Debka is OK. I certainly don't believe everything I read on Debka, but they often do have information that is correct but cannot be found in the mainstream media.

Some articles on Debka are good, others are questionable. It's worth reading, but you'll need to filter by using other sources.

[wtc911]

I communicate with troops with 327 and 187 of the 101st on a regular e-mail basis. They tell me that the body count on the other side is and has been high. Our guys are giving a whole lot more than they're getting.

[Enterprise]

The deaths of innocents is always terrible. However, when our troops are under attack, they should open up with all they got. Cold - but it's the way I feel.

[NYKbyD]

Any way you can help me get in touch with anyone in the 1 battalion of the 187th. A friend of mines son was a Sergeant in that unit killed back in July. I want to send a care package to his unit but need contacts to sent to.

[wtc911]

I will freepmail the apo for 1/187 tomorrow a.m. but I don't know if it will get there without an individual's name.

[Company Man]

Terrorists? The fact they are primarily targetting foreign troopers makes them sound like guerillas. You're not too familiar with the Fayadeen, are you? This is the same bunch that that have pushed civilians directly into the line of fire , and forced civilians to attack the coalition (and suffer certain death) by holding their family members hostage.

[Chu Gary]

Welcome to FreeRepublic, Mr. 11/20/03.

[festus]

If you are right and Saddam goes to France then I believe we should rescind the treaty that ended WWII and tell Germany we will only accept their surrender if they agree to keep France as one of their own territories........

(Rumor has it this was part of our original demands but the Germans would have fought to the last man to avoid having to keep France...... ;-)

Either that or just flatten France.....

[Dave Elias]

"You're not too familiar with the Fayadeen, are you? This is the same bunch that that have pushed civilians directly into the line of fire , and forced civilians to attack the coalition (and suffer certain death) by holding their family members hostage."

I never said they were nice, just not terrorists. What you described is not an act of terrorism, but a war crime under paragraph 2 of article 8 of the Geneva conventions.

[Dave Elias]

Pakistan and Israel are completely analogous. Both were set up along line of religious make-up. Both were set up through Machieavellian expediency rather than through altruism or religious sympathies.

Actually now I come to think of it Jewish 'terrorists', David Ben Gurion and Menachem Begin blowing up British hotels were pretty instrumental in the process too. Both men later became Israeli PMs, go figure!