Posted on 03/31/2003 9:18:26 AM PST by JohnHuang2
The Pentagon (CNSNews.com) - As U.S. and British forces consolidate their positions around Baghdad, military leaders in the south are working effectively against paramilitaries on a local level with members of the Iraqi resistance, a U.S. war commander said Monday.
Around Basra, where some communities still are "under the boot of the regime," coalition forces are "receiving assistance and information from people in Basra and it localizes our attacks very effectively," Brig. Gen. Vincent Brooks told reporters at a briefing in Qatar.
As the Fedayeen Saddam continue to use civilians in attacks, and amid reports that more suicide bombings are likely, the allies will "remain in close contact with as many Iraqi leaders, resistance leaders and others, that are out there that can give us additional information and assistance," Brooks said
"They ultimately will be the inheritors of Basra, we believe," he said.
Entifadh Qanbar, the U.S. representative of the Iraqi National Congress, one of the largest of the exile organizations, said his group is ready to play an even greater military role in the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.
"Any military participation from Iraqi freedom fighters will empower the people inside the cities and will enhance the resistance to those thugs who are killing the U.S. military," Qanbar told CNSNews.com .
Neither the U.S. military nor the INC will speculate on the number or the effectiveness of the resistance force, citing security concerns.
Indeed, anti-Saddam groups are seen as a hindrance on the battlefield. At a Pentagon press conference Friday, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said some hundreds of Badr Brigade fighters who crossed from Iran in recent days to fight in Iraq would be opposed as enemy combatants.
Qanbar said, however, that the coalition forces needed the support of an active Iraqi resistance to identify and fight the paramilitaries.
In a war of liberation, "Iraqis must participate and Saddam is using tactics that can be easily eliminated if the Iraqi people are participating," he said.
"We have liaison with the U.S. command and we are coordinating efforts toward joint liberation operations," he added.
John Hulsman, a senior foreign policy analyst with the Heritage Foundation, said the idea that Iraqi exiles could go in and topple Saddam Hussein is "absolute fantasy."
"Part of the problem with exiles is it's very hard to gauge their relevance and legitimacy on the ground," Hulsman said. "Often exile groups overrate their importance for obvious political reasons."
For example, the Shiites, who are the most oppressed group, were not able to rise up in the south and take the oil. They don't seem to be an effective fighting force and the exiles have limited influence over making them such, he said.
"In the end, this is going to be about the Brits and the Americans," Hulsman said.
Brooks said at the briefing that the coalition forces have contacts with both Iraqi military and civilian leaders.
"We have a number of military leaders that have been taken under our control as a result of combat actions or by raids. They're providing useful information in a number of cases that we are then taking ... action on," Brooks said.
"What we are seeking is a broad effect on this regime where we can operate in a variety of areas with a variety of effects, at a time and place of our choosing, and that's working very well," he said.
Brooks said there is "heightened awareness" among troops of the possibility of suicide bombings in the aftermath of a bombing at a checkpoint Saturday that killed four U.S. soldiers.
"We always knew there were threats of suicide bombers; we'd seen things that had been reported just like these reports of thousands coming in that want to be suicide bombers," he said.
Despite the threats, the allies will continue to treat civilians in a way that does not brutalize them but tries to protect them as much as possible, Brooks said.
Saddam Hussein's forces, on the other hand, are seeking to exploit the movement of civilians to conduct terrorist operations and attack troops, he said. Brooks cited an incident near Karbala where irregular forces tried to cross a bridge they had rigged for demolition, pushing women and children in front of them.
"One woman tried to break contact and escape, and as she ran, she was shot in the back and thrown into the river," Brooks said.
"No one's killing more Iraqis right now than the regime," he said.
Actually, I think its about you needing your diapers changed. Sounds like you are pissin yer pants there friend..
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