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Length: 3:22
PAULA ZAHN: Despite all
of the diplomatic activity, the "Top Story" in Iraq
itself is the bloody violence, whether you call it a
civil war or not. Now, today, in Ramadi, U.S.
soldiers discovered the bodies of a man and five
girls inside a house that was captured after a
firefight with insurgents. In the Iraqi capital
itself, a car bomb went off outside a hospital,
killing at least four people, wounding dozens. The
tortured bodies of at least 50 Iraqis were simply
dumped on the streets of Baghdad.
All this comes as an American general is warning that
sectarian violence in Iraq may be about to get worse.
Our Michael Ware was at that briefing. He joins us
now.
So, what was it that General Caldwell was suggesting?
What is it they expect, if things are to get worse
before they get better?
MICHAEL WARE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, essentially,
what General Caldwell was saying is that a whirlwind
is more or less in effect.
This sectarian violence that the military can't bear
to bring itself to call a civil war has its own
momentum. It's perpetuating itself. And there's
absolutely nothing right now that looks like it can
act as a circuit breaker.
So, he is saying that all the portents are showing us
that there's no sign of abatement. And with tensions
inflamed in the wake of the Thanksgiving Day
car-bombing massacre against the Shia population and
the retaliatory strikes we have seen going backwards
and forwards ever since, it can only spiral downward.
ZAHN: Let's talk about some of the numbers he shared
that show that there is some good news coming out of
Iraq, pointing to the fact that the coalition had
killed or captured 7,000 members of al Qaeda in Iraq
since 2004, and that more than 30 senior members of
the group have been killed or captured since July.
How realistic are those numbers?
WARE: Well, the numbers could be plausible. I mean,
that does account for al Qaeda's strength.
I mean, they're bringing anything between 50 and 100
foreign fighters across the western borders every
month. That's at least the ones that the U.S.
military thinks it can track. It is growing by the
day, as it draws more and more Iraqi Sunnis to its
ranks. The bulk of the suicide bombers almost
completely come from the foreign fighters. So, the
foot soldiers, more and more, are these Iraqis.
What percentage of the insurgency they make up in
total is ill-determined, anything from 5 percent to
10 percent. But we now know that, as it's been for
the last two years, the insurgents can put as many as
20,000 to 30,000 fighters in the field on any given
day.
So, al Qaeda sends its people here, expecting to die.
It's an organization built for regeneration. It knows
it's going to lose people in martyrdom operations and
in arrests. So, it's ready to replace them as soon as
you take them away. Meanwhile, it's declared an
Islamic state. So, the success has to be said to be
marginal.
ZAHN: Michael Ware, thanks so much for the
update.