How al Qaeda lost in Iraq

Strategy Page:

A side benefit of killing al Qaeda leader Abu Musab al Zarqawi on June 7th, was the capture of many of his working documents. Much of what these documents contained had been obtained in earlier raids, and from interrogations. But this time, American intelligence officers had an up to date record of what al Qaeda was thinking, what their plans were and, perhaps most importantly, how they thought they were doing. Zarqawi believed al Qaeda's situation was bleak, and getting worse. The main reason for that glum assessment was the growth of the Iraqi security forces (army and police), and the movement of these forces into Sunni Arab areas of central Iraq during the past year. The battle of Fallujah last Fall was the beginning of the end, and the constant pressure since then has made it more difficult for al Qaeda to plan and carry out terror attacks. The mass media found nothing newsworthy in al Qaedas declining fortunes, but Zarqawi and his lieutenants were certainly paying attention.

Interestingly, Zarqawi mentions unfavorable media coverage of al Qaeda with in Iraq, without admitting that the deaths of thousands of Iraqis by terror attacks might have anything to do with it. According to Zarqawi, those deaths would not be so harmful if it wasn't because of the way the Iraqi government propaganda made al Qaeda look like a bunch of unfeeling butchers. Zarqawi was also dismayed at the number of Sunni Arabs who were turning away from al Qaeda, and supporting the government. Zarqawi was also feeling the financial pinch, apparently from the American and Iraqi operation to shut down the smuggling across the Syrian border, and international efforts to reduce foreign funding of al Qaeda operations in general. Zarqawi was also unhappy with the growing number of foreign countries that were setting up embassies in Iraq, which made the government appear more legitimate. (Emphasis added.)

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There is more. The ital refers to the problem caused when the local media, unlike the US media, focused on the wickedness of the al Qaeda strategy of murdering non combatants. These killings cost them not only the support of the people. It turned the people into activle helpers of the US and the Iraqi forces who they flooded with tips providing actionalble intelligence. The cumulitive effect of all this intelligence was degrading al Qaeda's ability to operate as its weapons caches' were discovered and destroyed and its operations were compromised as more leadership targets were captured and killed as well as bomb builders. If the US media had acted accordingly, support for our efforts would be substantially greater.