Who is in charge of the Sunni insurgency?

Jack Kelly:

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Army and Marine intelligence, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency and the Treasury Department's Office of Intelligence and Analysis think that al-Qaida is running the Sunni insurgency in Iraq. The other 12 agencies think the Sunni portion of the violence is dominated by former supporters of Saddam Hussein. Al-Qaida, the majority thinks, is playing only a relatively small role.

The dispute is fraught with political implications. If the majority is right that the insurgency is dominated by ex-Baathists, that bolsters the view of those who think the conflict in Iraq is largely a civil war. But if the dissenters are right that al-Qaida is running the show, this bolsters President Bush's contention that Iraq is the central front in the war on terror.

Major dissents in NIEs have, in recent years, been rare. Typically, disputes in NIEs are "resolved" by reducing conclusions to the lowest common denominator, with lots of "on the one hand this, on the other hand that" qualifying phraseology. This covers wonderfully the posteriors of all involved in drafting the report, but pabulum of this sort provides policy makers with little useful guidance.

Policy makers often prefer pabulum to sharp disagreements within the intelligence community, because then they don't have to choose one point of view over the other. If a president has to choose, he could choose wrongly, and the agencies whose views he overrode could be annoyed.

It makes a very big difference whether the majority or the dissenters are right about who is calling the shots in the Sunni insurgency in Iraq. But who is right?

The majority who say the Baathists are still in charge is large. But the dissenters -- especially Army and Marine intelligence -- represent the agencies in the best position to know what's happening on the ground in Iraq.

The position of the dissenters is close to that expressed in a report last August by Marine Col. Peter Devlin, chief of intelligence for Anbar province. And the CIA didn't exactly cover itself with glory in its prewar predictions. Have the CIA's sources improved? Are they better than the military's?

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There is a third alternative that apparently is not discussed in the NIE. The Iraqi insurgent could be like the Palestinian insurgency, i.e. no one entity controls the various factions. This gives them freedom from external control and makes it more difficult for their opponents to launch a decapitating strike. It also makes it impossible to negotiate any meaningful agreement with anyone because they can't control the conduct of the other groups and there fore they have nothing of value to offer in any deal. It also makes it all the more important to destroy the enemy rather than negotiating with them.

Col. Devlin's assessment is extremely dated now. Since his report was produced the Anbar Sheiks have come over to the side of the Marines and have help get Iraqi recruits for the police and army in the region. Their primary concerns are two fold--al Qaeda and the Shia which includes the Iranians. Dramatic improvements have been made in several cities in the region. Fox News has had a woman reporter in the area interview not only the Marines but the sheiks.

The fact that the NIE was completed in December also means that it does not reflect some of the early benefits of the surge in Baghdad. Al Qaeda has sounded retreat and Sadr is lying low. The neighborhood killing have dropped dramatically and the enemy has been reduced to car and truck bombs attacks on market places. These could be greatly reduced by prohibiting vehicle traffic in the markets during ours of operation.