Donald Rumsfeld insists there is no "guerrilla war" going on in Iraq. Well, OK, maybe so. But the counter-strikes against U.S. forces are consistent with a conscious rope-a-dope strategy by Saddam and others who realized they couldn't win the military confrontation outright but want to fight a low-intensity war to survive and outlast us. Time will tell, but two things are clear: we need to find Saddam and his cadres, and we'll need determination for a drawn-out struggle in this "country" that is one big armed camp. This president has lots of the latter; now we just need a few breaks on catching the Big Guy.
Attacks against U.S. troops in Iraq are more like terrorist attacks being carried out by criminals, foreign terrorists and officials from the ousted government of Saddam Hussein, [Rumsfeld] said. Mr. Rumsfeld said the remnants of Saddam's Ba'ath Party regime and Fedayeen death squads have become a kind of "terrorist network" in the country. "We are dealing with those remnants in a forceful fashion. ... Those battles will go on for some time," he said.Posted by Alan at July 1, 2003 10:03 AMU.S. forces in Iraq launched a major sweep Sunday, arresting suspected terrorists and others who are believed to be behind recent attacks. "No one raid or five raids is going to deal with the entire problem," Mr. Rumsfeld said. "The problem is going to be dealt with over time, as the Iraqis assume more and more responsibility for their own country." The defense secretary identified five types of fighters behind the recent attacks. They include former Saddam regime officials; thousands of Iraqi criminals who were released from prisons before the war; ordinary looters; foreign terrorists who infiltrated Iraq; and fighters "influenced by Iran."
All five groups operate in slightly different ways in opposing U.S. troops, and thus the current conflict is unlike a guerrilla war or organized resistance movement, he said. "It makes it like five different things going on that are functioning much more like terrorists," Mr. Rumsfeld said.
Mr. Rumsfeld compared post-Saddam Iraq to the years after the end of the Revolutionary War, when the newly formed United States went through a period of "chaos and confusion," including protests by demobilized soldiers that forced Congress to temporarily move out of Washington.
via the Washington Times