Your point that AQ controlled most of Iraq is new to me. Is there a source where I can read more about that?
I don't have a specific link to give you. My information is based on various reports, specific info from past threads,reports from visitors to Iraq just prior to the coalition strikes, and common sense in seeing what we are still fighting. It is not outposts of Saddam's guards, it is still the mercenaries/organized crime outfit registered under the Al Queda banner. They had political and economic control of everything outside Baghdad and Tikrit. We are fighting Saddam loyalists still in Tikrit, but that is about it for them. They had fallen back to there from Baghdad, as the only safe place in the country, since the AQ had the rest.
Now much of the AQ has escaped to different countries with Syria harboring the most, and the components for WMD's were moved to Syria. We know because we watched them transport them during the period between Bush's first call for a strike, which he delayed on due to the media and the Dems crying "Give him a few more days to comply with the UN RESOLUTION (the one where he is supposed to destroy all WMD's)"
Kinda Ironic. That they were admitting he still was in violation of the UN Resolution, and now they say he wasn't.
The Dems, the French, the Germans were pleading with Bush to wait another few days, or weeks.
Now you know what they were wanting him to wait for. (please wait til we can get the evidence out of the country!!).