CNN.com: Analysis: Iraq
not ready to face al Qaeda
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Analysis: Iraq not ready to face al
Qaeda
By Michael Ware, CNN
October 28, 2009 -- Updated 1929 GMT (0329
HKT)
New York (CNN) -- The bombs that ripped through
Baghdad on Sunday immediately brought more bloodshed
-- and bode only of the promise of more to come.
The attacks have been claimed by the Islamic State of
Iraq -- a group affiliated with al Qaeda in Iraq --
and there's nothing to suggest the attacks will come
to an end.
It's part of a long-running campaign to destabilize
the U.S. mission, the Iraqi government and to
reignite sectarian civil war.
The slaughter is not new but the extent of the
killings in these bombings -- 160 dead and more than
500 injured -- do punctuate a seemingly never ending
campaign.
While al Qaeda in Iraq has been gutted from within,
principally by Sunni insurgents turning on them and
assassinating them over recent years, the network
still exists.
Al Qaeda, an organization built with the expectation
of loss, has endured and will continue to do so until
Iraq's slated January election and beyond.
Under the international agreement between Washington,
D.C. and Baghdad signed by the then-outgoing Bush
administration, America's war in Iraq has all but
ended with command of the war shifting permanently to
the Iraqi government.
Al Qaeda attacks took place during the U.S. command
and now persist under Iraqi command.
While many are thwarted, while car bombs are found
and defused, it's an ugly matter of fact that in war
some bombs will always get through.
And Iraqi security forces in no way can be said to be
ready to face the threat posed by al Qaeda or any
insurgent group.
The devastation of the bombings has had the effect al
Qaeda desired -- chipping away at Iraqi public
confidence in government, even prompting the governor
of Baghdad to call for the resignation of the
security officials in charge of the capital's safety.
Al Qaeda in Iraq is not the network it once was, it's
not able to deliver multiple suicide bombings on an
almost daily basis.
When I was last in Baghdad nationalist insurgents
told me there were but a handful of operational al
Qaeda cells in the city. Nonetheless, they warned
five committed al Qaeda members can "wreak havoc."
The weekend bombings are testament to that. While the
tempo of al Qaeda's suicidal strikes -- largely
targeting Iraq's Shia community -- have slowed, they
have not stopped. While al Qaeda in Iraq maintains
its capacity to kill it will keep striking.
This is the environment that the U.S. is likely to
leave in Iraq -- a fragile state plagued with an ever
present al Qaeda threat.
The question is how that state counters the threat
and maintains its credibility with its own people.
And that, ultimately, will be the final measure of
the American mission -- how well the Iraqis stand
up.