Al Qaeda weaker than ever in Iraq

AP:

The al-Qaida terror group in Iraq appears to be at its weakest state since it gained an initial foothold in the aftermath of the U.S.-led invasion five years ago, the acting commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East said Wednesday in an Associated Press interview.

Army Lt. Gen. Martin Dempsey, who assumed interim command of U.S. Central Command on March 28, acknowledged that al-Qaida remains a relentless foe and has not disappeared as a serious threat to stability. But he said an accelerated U.S. and Iraq campaign to pressure al-Qaida has paid big dividends.

"Our forces and the Iraqi forces have certainly disrupted al-Qaida, probably to a level that we haven't seen at any time in my experience," said Dempsey, who served in Iraq in the initial stages as a division commander and later as head of the military organization in charge of training Iraqi security forces.

"They can regenerate, and do from time to time," he added in the interview in his office at Central Command headquarters.

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Earlier Wednesday, the Army general who oversees U.S. commando operations in the Middle East said that al-Qaida in Iraq has yet to be vanquished but is increasingly running out of places where local Iraqis will accommodate the group's extremist ideology.

"Is he still a lethal and dangerous threat to us? Absolutely," Maj. Gen. John Mulholland said in an interview with reporters at the headquarters of U.S. Special Operations Command, the organization with global responsibility for providing Army Green Berets, Navy SEALs and other commandos to combat terrorism.

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What he is really saying is that at this point al Qaeda is on the defensive and is running out of people willing to give it sanctuary and support. But, if we take our foot off his neck he can regenerate and become a factor that would attack the current Iraqi progress. The way I see it is we are winning and have these guys on the run and now is no time to let up and force our troops to retreat in the face of victory which is exactly what the anti war left wants and what their candidate Obama wants.