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HALA GORANI: Well, the
chief of Iraq's al Qaeda wing is claiming in a
purported audio recording that the insurgency is what
drove U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld from
office. He also had some words for the U.S.
president, George Bush.
Michael Ware is live from Baghdad with more.
I remember, Michael, a few days ago you said, "It
wouldn't surprise me if, in one of these recordings,
we heard those al Qaeda militants use the Donald
Rumsfeld resignation in a propaganda tape." And here
you go, you have it.
MICHAEL WARE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, you're
absolutely right, Hala. I mean, this was too good an
opportunity with so much political upheaval in
Washington for the insurgency and for al Qaeda not to
try and capitalize upon it.
The first out of the blocks was an Iraqi Shia
politician, backed by a very powerful militia. He
said this was a sign of American defeat. Then we had
the Sunni Islamic Army of Iraq say that this was a
triumph, a victory for the insurgency.
Now we see al Qaeda's leader in Iraq take it further.
He's actually taunting the U.S. administration,
calling President Bush a lame duck and Secretary
Rumsfeld a coward, saying to Secretary Rumsfeld,
"We've not yet had enough of your blood. Come to the
battlefield."
He says the day of victory for the Islamic state of
Iraq has come sooner than expected and America has no
choice now but to run. So this very much is by the
numbers, as you point out -- Hala.
GORANI: All right. And another thing is, before 2003,
it would take weeks, sometimes months before an al
Qaeda tape or videotape would come out mentioning a
news event. Here we're looking at 24 hours, churning
those tapes out like a well-oiled P.R. machine.
WARE: Oh, absolutely. And we've seen this develop
since the advent of the insurgency in 2003.
We've watched their levels of sophistication rise.
Not only on the battlefield, but in terms of their
information messages, from the very raw and clunky
videotapes we first received in 2003, to the very
slickly-produced productions we get now.
We've also seen them operating in real time, as you
highlight. They're watching these elections very
closely. The Islamic Army of Iraq referring in detail
to Speaker-Elect Pelosi, and now we have al Qaeda in
Iraq coming out and leaping on this.
Now, remember, this is a group that started as a
handful of Jordanians in a camp in Harat in
Afghanistan that became the notorious group led by
Zarqawi, known as Tawhid wal-Jihad, became al Qaeda
in Iraq, the Mujahideen Shura Council. Now we see
them create the Islamic State of Iraq with its own
caliph, and that's who he's saying, "I now have
12,000 fighters to give you."
So this, it's from here that this generational war
that British intelligence talks about is going to
come from -- Hala.
GORANI: All right. Michael Ware, live in Baghdad.
Thanks, Michael.