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Length: 4:48
MILES O'BRIEN: At least seven people are dead after
gunmen attacked a Shiite mosque northeast of Baghdad.
Police say the attackers fired six mortar rounds and
then detonated explosives around that mosque.
CNN's Michael Ware just got back from being embedded
with U.S. forces in the western Iraqi town of Ramadi.
Ramadi is within the so-called Sunni Triangle.
Insurgent activity there remains strong. Gun battles
are a daily occurrence.
He joins us now from Baghdad.
Michael, good morning to you.
MICHAEL WARE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Miles, good morning.
In Ramadi, in western al-Anbar province, we see what
can only be described as a black hole in President
Bush's global war on terror. As the president is
going through his series of speeches to reassure the
American people and to inform them about the success
and the progress of his war on terror, there in
al-Anbar we see that al-Qaeda at its very heart has
been found, identified, yet is not being struck at.
In one of his speeches last week, the president
referred to Osama bin Laden and his number two, Ayman
al-Zawahiri. They make it very clear that Iraq is the
centerpiece of their war against America, and that
within that centerpiece of Iraq it is al-Anbar, it is
Ramadi which is the toehold from which they will
build their base. What we know is that al-Qaeda in
Iraq uses this area as its headquarters. This is
where its leaders hide, move, plan. Yet, what is
happening? America does not have enough troops to
send out there.
Al-Qaeda is almost untouched in its area of
operations, and in the city of Ramadi itself,
al-Qaeda fighters are constantly attacking U.S.
troops. Brigades sent to Ramadi are losing, on
average, 100 American soldiers and Marines every
year. And we don't see that abating.
So, here's the heart of al-Qaeda in Iraq, and there's
simply not enough troops and no strategy to combat it
-- Miles.
M. O'BRIEN: Well, Michael, you have talked to the
people on the ground there. I'm sure they probably
don't say it for the record, but how many troops do
they think they need in order to get a hold of this
problem?
WARE: Well, officially, from Baghdad to Ramadi, the
response you will get from American commanders is
that we have an appropriate level of force to do what
we have to do within the confines of our mission.
However, the key term that all of them use is
"economy of force."
They say that "we are applying an economy of force
mission." That in itself is an admission that they
don't have the full number of troops that they need
to do what actually has to be done.
Privately, offline, what commanders, again, from
Baghdad to Ramadi, will tell you is that they need at
least three times as many troops as they currently
have there now, be that Iraqi and American or, even
better, just three times as many as American troops.
I mean, there's an area there north of the Euphrates
River that is used by al-Qaeda's top leadership that
Osama bin Laden himself points to. It's the size of
New Hampshire. You have only a few hundred American
troops there. They can do nothing to hamper
al-Qaeda's leadership in that area -- Miles.
M. O'BRIEN: And a final thought here. To what extent
are these al-Qaeda leaders in cahoots with the
homegrown insurgency? And if there is a relationship,
who is taking orders from whom?
WARE: Well, this is one of the most fascinating
things about it. I mean, since the inception of this
war, we have seen al-Qaeda global jihad introduced to
a country where it never exists. And like a cancer,
once one cell appears, it begins to metastasize.
So what we have seen, throughout the country but
particularly in Ramadi, is al-Qaeda -- through its
money, its motivation, its tactic, its ideology --
hijack the local fight. So in Ramadi, it's actually
the al-Qaeda front line.
Al-Qaeda dominates all the other groups so
effectively that it is in charge. So, this is where
American Marines and soldiers go face to face every
day with the very organization that attacked the
World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and yet it seems
that they're being forced to do so under-resourced
and with one arm tied behind their back -- Miles.
M. O'BRIEN: We'll leave it at that.
Michael Ware in Baghdad.
Thank you very much -- Soledad.