Posted on 10/01/2005 1:22:28 PM PDT by FairOpinion
BAGHDAD [MENL] -- The U.S. military has determined that 80 percent of the Al Qaida network has been captured or killed.
Officials said the breakthrough against Al Qaida took place over the last four months. They said a series of strikes in northern and western Iraq have eliminated senior Al Qaida commanders as well as disrupted the flow of insurgents and weapons from neighboring Syria.
Brig. Gen. Kevin Bergner, deputy commanding general of Multinational Force-Northwest in Iraq, told a Defense Department teleconference on Sept. 23 that U.S. and Iraqi troops have disrupted about 80 percent of Al Qaida's network. Bergner, an army officer, based his assessment on the detention and killing of the leadership as well as the disruption of the group's resources.
"Eighty percent of the network has been affected by our operations, and when I say affected I mean in terms of either disrupting the flow of resources to them, disrupting the flow of people that participate in those terrorist acts, disrupting the leadership, and so forth," Bergner said. "Now the challenge is, you've got to keep them from reconstituting and continue to keep that pressure on."
He was talking about al-Qaeda in Northern Iraq not Anbar.
Distinction without a difference?
I am not saying it isn't good news. But, the center of al-Qaeda in Iraq is in Anbar. When we disrupt 80% of its Anbar network I will be chearing.
So will I, but the good news here is that Mosul is a lot calmer than last year.
"He was talking about al-Qaeda in Northern Iraq not Anbar."
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Well, I would still consider this significant. I looked at other articles:
US General Says al-Qaida Crippled in Northwestern Iraq
http://www.voanews.com/english/2005-09-23-voa49.cfm
A senior U.S. military officer said Friday that coalition forces in northwestern Iraq have disrupted "about 80 percent" of the al-Qaida terrorist network's capabilities in the region. The general spoke in the wake of a major offensive to remove insurgents from the town of Tal Afar.
Unfortunately, for those of us who lived through the Vietnam War era, these sorts of reports sound very familiar. Then, it was body count. Now, it's percent of Al Qaeda made ineffective.
As long as IEDs and suicide bombers keep killing people, it's hard to believe these success reports.
I think we must be there for the long haul. But these "success" stories, which are clearly meant to bolster fading support for the war, just sound hollow when you hear about the next bombing. It's better not to boast about things, especially things you can't possibly verify, such as % of Al Qaeda's effectiveness, rather than to keep causing unjustified and short-lived optimism, only to be deflated a few days later.
Do you think it's appropriate that the MSM trumpets every problem and amplifies them enormously, on the front pages, and inapproriate for us to counter them with some facts about our successes?
Seriously, I sure wish they'd find Zarqawi and Osama. I hope they wound them and then they get gangrene and go slowly.
Rocky in my Opinion is also correct As long as IEDs and suicide bombers keep killing people, it's hard to believe these success reports.
Wolf
Good news doesn't sell.
That's why almost all we see is bad news.
It's the nature of the business.
Good news doesn't sell.
That's why almost all we see is bad news.
It's the nature of the business.
Just give it time and patience. The Democrats want a swift Hollywood-style victory over Al Qaeda forgetting the fact that it was Clinton who allowed it to progress into the evil network that it is today.
"It's the nature of the business."
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Not to mention the AGENDA of MSM.
(Um, that was about a minute worth of server posting latency, if anyone was curious)
And just like Viet Nam, the enemy counts on the weak will of the population focusing on a stream of out-of-context images. This is where our poor educational system endangers us.
Bombings have dropped in frequency, but that context is not provided by our media. If the media were to focus on each street killing in Los Angeles or Chicago or Detroit we would all think our country was coming apart at the seams. The bombings are all targeted primarily at our media (notice that they stopped while Katrina monopolized coverage?). They are not militarily significant when they don't prevent the political process that is gaining strength and they alienate so many of the Iraqi's.
I wonder how FDR would have reacted to your guidance not to talk about the bigger picture. After all there were terrible defeats and mega-losses of life that made WWII look pretty dismal in the early days.
Keep reading here and you will see the momentum gaining. In a few months many of our fellow citizens will be surprized that the situation has turned around while the media was telling them it was getting worse.
They should. The same MSM is in charge. You know, the ones who reported that the US was experiencing military defeat when, in fact, it was military victory.
Uh, how are we supposed to guage the 80% figure?
In July, a large base was established in Rawah, the strategic town that sits at the crossroads of the Anbar province, with roads leading in all directions. In September, Tal Afar was removed as the northern terrorist safe haven, and Coalition forces moved into the city to establish control. The Rabiah crossing in the north and the Rutbah crossing in the south were secured. Raids and airstrikes along the Euphrates River continued during this time. Hundreds of al Qaeda and insurgent operators were killed or captured during these search and destroy missions. Operation Hunter is now in full swing. The purpose of which is to bolster the U.S. and Iraqi presence in the western Anbar region from Qaim to Haditha. Sayaid will add several U.S. battalions and Iraqi battalions to the region, as well as add several hundred Iraqi border guards along the Syrian border. Iraq's 7th Army Division will provide for permanent security in the region. The focus is gaining control of the small towns and cities along the western bend of the Euphrates River where al Qaeda has established networks and safe houses.
The first phase of Operation Sayaid (Hunter) came in July when an Army squadron of Stryker vehicles, augmented for intelligence gathering, rolled south from Mosul to set up an outpost near the Euphrates River town of Rawah. The contingent of more than 1,000 troops established an American presence on the north side of the river; the Marines had been operating on the south side. Also arriving in Rawah was an Iraqi Intervention Force battalion.
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