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Length: 6:56
ANDERSON COOPER: A bloody
day, of course in Iraq today, 18 people killed there
in bombings, in shootings. Baghdad police say that
they have found some 60 bodies, believed to be
victims of the growing sectarian violence between
Shia and Sunni groups. Of course, al Qaeda in Iraq, a
Sunni group, is increasingly active in the province
of al-Anbar. And a recent classified report, a
Pentagon report, reported by "The Washington Post"
yesterday, says that the U.S. military has too few
troops in al-Anbar to deal with the growing threat.
CNN's Michael Ware has traveled extensively through
the region. He joins us now from Baghdad.
What do you make of that, Michael? Are there enough
-- well, we'll talk to Michael in a moment. First
let's take a look at his report.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MICHAEL WARE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over):
American soldiers in al-Qaeda's heartland in Iraq,
and a gaping black hole in Washington's global war on
terror: Ramadi, where U.S. forces suffer as many as
two combat deaths a week, battling daily with
insurgents coordinated by Osama bin Laden's
commanders.
COL. SEAN MACFARLAND, CDR. BDE., 1ST ARMORED
DIVISION: And al-Qaeda, as you probably know, they
want to establish a caliphate basically from Pakistan
to Spain, with its heart here in al-Anbar Province.
And of course the capital of al-Anbar is Ramadi.
WARE: President Bush himself points to al-Qaeda's
claim on al-Anbar.
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We
see the strategy laid out in a captured al-Qaeda
document found during a recent raid in Iraq which
describes their plans to infiltrate and take over
Iraq's western Anbar Province.
WARE: It's from here in this farmland called Jazeera,
on the opposite bank of the Euphrates River from
Ramadi, that U.S. military intelligence believes
al-Qaeda in Iraq runs their headquarters.
MAJ. MATT. EICHBURG, EXEC. OFFICER, 1ST INFANTRY: And
they come to do their command/control, their
planning, their resupply, if you will, and then their
transit. A lot of the guys that are responsible for
some of the bigger attacks, they live out here.
WARE: Jazeera is the size of New Hampshire, but the
Pentagon posts just a few hundred soldiers here. The
military term "economy of force" applies. American
officers say that means they only have one-third of
the troops needed to quell al-Qaeda's stranglehold.
But a new rotation in the battle-scarred city brings
new tactics. Until now, the southern suburbs barely
saw a U.S. boot on the ground. But by thinning troops
in outlying areas, the U.S. military is building
outposts in suburbs once owned by insurgents.
LT. JASON RICHARDSON, BRAVO Correct., 1ST INFANTRY:
Our intel told us that insurgents would gather out
here in numbers from 10 to 50 and meet up and rally,
get in their cars and move on and execute missions.
WARE: This mosque was an Iraqi al-Qaeda base, home to
the group's local leader. And now, this U.S. outpost
sits next door. From here, infantry patrols push out
with lists of the wanted.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (reads name)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's the one that hit my
Bradley.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You sure?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yeah.
WARE: His patrol goes into what locals dub the
Mujahadeen village. But now al-Qaeda adjusts its
tactics.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You know, they'll fire random
mortars, develop and adjust sneaky ways to put in
IEDs. It's a dangerous, it's a very difficult war to
fight, but it's not -- I don't know how to put this.
WARE: And now a sniper war. This U.S. soldier looking
for targets as al-Qaeda does the same.
RICHARDSON: We saw a car pull up, a guy get out the
front seat, climb into the backseat, remove a panel
from off his car and aim from the car to our rooftop
position, which unfortunately resulted in the death
of one Marine who was on the rooftop. So -- but, I
mean, we can't shoot every car that comes by but.
WARE: Though the attacks and U.S. deaths continue,
the new plan is having an effect. Al-Qaeda still
dominates the insurgency, but it's had to adapt.
MACFARLAND: And we're seeing a steady decline in the
types of complex and the size of the types of the
attacks that we have experienced here in the past.
WARE: But the Marine general commanding al-Anbar says
right now he does not have enough troops, U.S. or
Iraqi, to win against the al-Qaeda-led insurgency. A
reality Colonel MacFarland faces on the ground.
MACFARLAND: The folks that we are fighting are the
same kind of folks that took down the World Trade
Center and drove an airplane into the Pentagon. And
these people here want to turn al-Anbar into what one
smart guy called al-Qaedastan. And right here, this
is our opportunity to stop that vision in its tracks.
WARE: But to the soldiers and Marines here, there's a
fear that without reinforcement that opportunity
could be lost.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: Michael, what we've seen in the past with the
U.S. military moving troops from one restive region
to another to try to sort of plug that hole, get more
boots on the ground. At this point, is that going to
work in al-Anbar?
WARE (on camera): Well, Anderson it depends on what
your objectives are. I mean it's moving chess pieces
across the board. The bottom line is, there's simply
not enough American troops in al-Anbar right now to
defeat the al-Qaeda-led insurgency. So, if you're
prepared to wait, if you're prepared to suffer the
fact that for ever day that passes, al-Qaeda
continues and arguably becomes stronger, then, yeah,
shifting troops around can work.
But the bottom line is, if you want something fixed
now, if in President Bush's global war on terror this
is seen as that gaping black hole and it needs to be
plugged, then no; you need to punch in more troops
immediately.
The other thing is, the U.S. needs to embolden the
political allies it has in al-Anbar. They are looking
to separate the homegrown Iraqi insurgents,
essentially the Baath party, from the al-Qaeda
insurgents. A lot more can be done to speed up that
process -- Anderson.
COOPER: Michael Ware, appreciate that report. Stay
safe, Michael, in Baghdad tonight.