The degradation of the Zarqawi network

Maj.Gen. Rick Lynch:

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Let me talk about degradation of the Zarqawi network over the course of the last year. For him to be effective, he's got to have leaders and led, he's got to have munitions, he's got to have access, he's got to have freedom of movement, he's got to have places where he can conduct his training, he's got to have safe havens. And all those things, our operations, with the Iraqi security forces, have denied him over the course of 2005.

Let's just zoom in on the leadership. Since 2005, 111 of his leaders have either been killed or captured: tier one, leaders who have direct ties to Zarqawi; tier two, leaders who are the leaders in local and regional areas; and tier three, terrorists, Iraqi and foreign fighters, many serving as cell leaders. So we indeed have had significant impact on terrorists and foreign fighters, al Qaeda in Iraq, in terms of their leadership.

Now, we're getting help in that from an unexpected source. Over the last several weeks, we have found that the local insurgency, the Sunni rejectionists, if you will, are conducting planned attacks against Zarqawi and his network. They have reached the point, like the people of Iraq have, that they're no longer going to tolerate terrorists in their midst.

They're seeing what you're seeing. Just in the last several days down in Basra, Zarqawi and his network placed an IED against the wall of a schoolhouse, detonated it and injured 20 innocent children. Just last Sunday here outside of Baghdad, Zarqawi and his network took a bomb, put it against a schoolhouse door and set it up as a booby trap. And if it wasn't for the awareness of the local Iraqi security guard, that bomb would have detonated when innocent children opened that door, and children would have been killed.

So the people of Iraq are saying, "Enough. We won't tolerate terrorists in our midst." So in the last several months, since September, six of these guys, six major leaders in the Zarqawi network in Iraq, have been killed by local insurgents, by Iraqi rejectionists saying, "Get out of here; we've had enough."

In Ramadi recently we've seen significant operations where the local insurgency has turned on the Zarqawi network and forced them out of Ramadi. We got indications of key leaders, al Qaeda leaders, who have been physically moved out of that town.

We're seeing stories across Iraq all the time. Let me show you a couple in Al Anbar. Just recently, five insurgents poised outside the city out west in Al Anbar planning to conduct operations against coalition forces and Iraqi security forces, and the people of that town, because they're tired of the attacks and the violence in their town, conducting their own operations against those five insurgents and drove them away. Drove them away. This is in Ramadi.

Just recently, a U.S. dismounted patrol, walking through the streets. A local citizen comes up and says, "Hey, directly to the south, 20 armed insurgents." That dismounted patrol planned and executed an attack against those 20 insurgents, killed and captured that group of insurgency directly a result of the citizen of that town saying, "I've had enough."

So I've told you before, we have Zarqawi on the ropes. We believe that's true. We believe that his network has been degraded. We believe that his ability to conduct operations has been degraded. And now a colleague in this operation against Zarqawi is the local insurgency. The idea of driving a wedge between the terrorists and foreign fighters and the Iraqis that support them and the Iraqi population is taking place, and the local insurgents have become part of the solution and not part of the problem.

Zarqawi's on the ropes, and we'll continue operations against him to defeat him and Iraq.
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Counterinsurgency U.

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So I want to talk to you about an initiative we started last November, and that's the Counterinsurgency Center for Excellence that we've established up in Taji. Now, it's been going for a couple of months. The classes last seven days, 40 people per class. We've had 350 of our leaders go through that class. The class is designed to share lessons learned. How do we improve our ability to conduct these counterinsurgency operations? And the attendees of the classes so far have been coalition leaders, captain and above. They go through a series of lesson learned vignettes. We bring in guest speakers like Iraqi battalion and brigade commanders that talk about coordination of activities and operations. We bring in mayors of local villages that talk about interface with the Iraqis in those villages. And we found this counterinsurgence academy to be a significant combat multiplier. And what we're doing now is expanding it to include students being members of the Iraqi security forces, students being members of the coalition forces, and we're developing a mobile training team, so rather than have to bring the students to Taji, we bring the instructors to the students. So a significant capability we've started in November, and I'd recommend highly, if you're interested, that we get you up to Taji to see that in more detail.

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Iraqi rejectionist are in discusssions with US

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The insurgency -- if you'll allow me to expand -- is three groups. It's terrorists and foreign fighters, Iraqi rejectionists, and the Saddamists. And what we find in that group called "Iraqi rejectionists," which are indeed individuals who may be dissatisfied with the established government, by outreach, by talking to them, by explaining the goodness of being part of the solution not part of the problem, we find that many of them end up being individuals that we can rely on to help make progress here in Iraq.

So we are indeed, with all the coalition forces and the coalition embassies, reaching out to individuals that we believe that could help reach the end state here in Iraq, which is a stable environment, an Iraq that's at peace with its neighbors, is an ally in the war on terror, that has a representative government and respects the human rights of all Iraqis. So there is indeed a dialogue taking place with individuals in that group we call the Iraqi rejectionists.

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There is much more.