Sunnis will nab Zarqawi when 'ready'

[ECH1969]

WASHINGTON -- Sunni "fence sitters" in Iraq say they would be willing to take on master terrorist Abu Musab Zarqawi and rid the country of foreign saboteurs if the Shi'ite-run government's new political structure is acceptable to them, according to a senior U.S. official.

"The Iraqis will kill every foreigner who comes into their neighborhood when they're ready," said the senior official who has spent months in Iraq. "They don't want foreigners in Iraq."

The official, who has held numerous meetings with what he called "influential fence sitters," said the representatives have told him they are only tolerating foreign terrorists because they are a "pressure tool" to force the Shi'ites and the U.S. to consider Sunni political demands for more representation in the Baghdad government.

"We'll catch him when we're ready," the official quoted one Sunni as telling him, referring to Zarqawi.

http://www.wpherald.com/storyview.php?StoryID=20050629-095620-1536r

[jmaier]

1. Sounds about right to me.

This is true political hardball from the group who had the power and is now cut out. It leads me to beleive, that the solution has to be a negotiated, political solution and not a military one.

[SittingBull]

2. There's only one problem

Zarkawi is a phantom, created by the OSP...

[saigon68]

17. Its bullshit and disinformation

No one knows whats going on from day to day.

[Missy M]

3. Does that mean the US soldiers will be killed if they go into their...

neighborhoods or are we not considered foreigners anymore?

[Cha]

4. Does that include

Americans?

[rodeodance]

5. we are puppets to their tribal dealy squabbles--

[Oversea Visitor]

8. Ahh these

tribals quarrel has been going on for centuries.

[bribri16]

19. Americans are foreigners in Iraq, aren't they? n/t

[The White Tree]

6. Who made that statement Major Frank Burns

Aren't we "foreigner's in Iraq"?

[still_one]

7. BS, they have no control, just like everything else there, choas

we are in the middle of a civil war

is that what we want to be part of?

[H5N1]

9. Nobody likes a grave robber

Or perhaps they intend to bottle his spirit.
This begs the question, did the man ever exist?

[NNN0LHI]

10. They stole our comic book bogyman. The bastards

Now I am pissed.

Don

[Jack Rabbit]

11. 'According to a senor US official'

Senior US officials told us that Iraq was greet US troops with open arms, not automatic arms.

[Tempest]

12. It won't make any real difference

Zarqawi isn't that big of a player when it comes to the insurgency.

99.9% of the insurgency is made up of Iraqis not under any command or control of outside agitators according to U.S. commanders.

[endarkenment]

13. psy ops campaign continues. eom.

[megatherium]

14. This makes sense given recent "red on red" incidents.

US forces have recently observed "red on red" incidents, where insurgents have battled other insurgents. Apparently, the homegrown Sunni insurgency does not appreciate the foreign insurgents. The foreign insurgents have killed large numbers of Iraqis, often in appalling atrocities such as the recent suicide bombing of a teaching hospital. The foreign insurgents have been trying to start a civil war, both to destroy secularism and to force the US out. But while a civil war might force the US out, it would be a catastrophe to the Iraqis, and both Sunni and Shiite factions would suffer.

[endarkenment]

15. It is all disinformation from our ministry of psychological warfare

Their reposte to the insurgency's efforts to destabilize the iraqi puppet government is to attempt to start a war within the insurgency.

At the moment I am considering all reports of negotiations with insurgent factions, of foreign fighters streaming over the borders to start a civil war, of serious fighting between insurgent factions, to be part of a deliberate effort to distract what has now become a devastatingly effective insurgency from its clear goal: defeating our efforts to create a viable compliant iraqi government.

Note that our attempt to 'iraqify' the conflict is BY DEFINITION CAUSING A CIVIL WAR in Iraq. But we are buying the bullshit that it is the bad bad insurgents and foreign fighters who are trying to do this.

[megatherium]

16. I'm not prepared to contradict you --

and I think we should leave Iraq forthwith -- but it would appear there are different factions in the insurgency. They all are trying to get rid of us, but it wouldn't surprise me if the one faction is hostile to another faction in the insurgency. Or are the reports of red-on-red fire simply a bald lie?

But I was thinking the reports of foreign fighters fighting local insurgents was a preparation for our departure from Iraq: the "good" insurgents would agree (in exchange for our departure) to beat up the "bad" insurgents. The insurgents would be happy, we will have left. We would be happy because we would have the figleaf of having arranged for the "terrorists" (= foreign "bad" insurgents) to be beaten up. After all, that's why we went into Iraq, wasn't it -- to fight terrorism? <grin>

[endarkenment]

18. we aren't leaving

'we' have no intention of leaving. There isn't even a peep from any of the self appointed opposition party leaders in this country suggesting that we ought to do anything other than 'stay the course'. I'll continue to view all reports from the ministry of disinformation as just that.

As to your thesis that this is a part of a deal. Sure that is possible. Unlikely, but possible. I think that the insurgents would be most reluctant to trust us at all, and consequently would not act until we had actually either left or clearly stood down and pulled back to our barracks. We are not doing either. Their experience of our last deal with them, with respect to Fallujah, undoubtedly has colored their opinion of our trustworthyness. Also note that just prior to our levelling of Fallujah a similar disinformation campaign appeared, with identical reports of infighting between 'furrin fighters' and 'local insurgents', etc. etc. etc.