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Length: 3:16
WOLF BLITZER: For more now on the situation inside
Iraq let's go to Baghdad. Michael Ware, our
correspondent is standing by. First of all, Michael,
on the extraordinarily high number of suicide
bombings this week more than, what, ever before? I
was pretty surprised to hear that.
MICHAEL WARE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, what we're
seeing is a regenerated al Qaeda, Wolf. We saw the
death of the leader of al Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Musab
al-Zarqawi, in June in a U.S. air strike. What this
organization is now displaying is its almost
unlimited ability to replenish itself.
They lose its larger-than-life charismatic leader,
they replace him immediately with another hard liner,
and there is a spike in suicide bombings. And this is
compared to a time when Zarqawi himself was able to
unleash 11 suicide car bombs in the capital in one
day. So you can tell where things are going, Wolf.
BLITZER: There's a new poll, you might have seen it,
conducted by the University of Maryland which says
that seven out of 10 Iraqis favor a commitment by
U.S. led forces in Iraq to withdraw at least within a
year. Seventy percent want the United States troops
out within the next year. Is that a surprise to you?
WARE: Not really, Wolf, no. I mean there's been a
long-term resentment towards the U.S. presence here.
I mean it's only ever described in one term, and
that's occupation. Be that Sunni, be that Shia. The
only people in favor of the U.S. presence here in any
ongoing capacity are the Kurds to the north.
Otherwise, the Arab Iraqis just want the Americans to
get out of the way and let them get on with business.
Now, that could be a very bloody and ugly affair;
nonetheless, that's what the people want, Wolf.
BLITZER: So the bottom line right now is you take a
look at the immediate security situation in and
around Baghdad, elsewhere in Iraq, is what?
WARE: Well, to the north with the Kurds it's
relatively quiet, however, we see al Qaeda groups or
al Qaeda aligned groups regenerated and reformed
there. Particularly Ansar al Islam, one of the groups
that President Bush targeted during the invasion of
2003. He claimed that group was decimated, yet it's
back with a vengeance.
In the south, the south is much more heavily
controlled by the Shia militias. Now, they're doing a
tradeoff here and their Iranian backers. They want to
destabilize the coalition, Brits and Americans in the
south, and this is what U.S. military intelligence
and British intelligence say.
They want to destabilize these forces just enough so
that they're on edge and remain in a force protection
mode, and as long as they're focused on that, they
don't worry about what else is going on. So by
trading off a relatively stable environment this
allows the militias and their foreign backers to
further entrench themselves within the roots of power
in the south -- Wolf.
BLITZER: All right, Michael, thanks very much.
Michael Ware reporting from Baghdad.