Has Maliki Ended The Insurgency?breaking news

http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/mt/ ^

[WBL 1952]

Earlier today, the Italian news service AKI reported that the presumed leader of the largest insurgency in Iraq will start cooperating with the Iraqi government. Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, one of the highest-ranking members of Saddam Hussein's government, reportedly pledged to work with Iraqi and American forces to fight al-Qaeda in Iraq:

The leader of Iraq's banned Baath party, Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, has decided to join efforts by the Iraqi authorities to fight al-Qaeda, one of the party's former top officials, Abu Wisam al-Jashaami, told pan-Arab daily Al Hayat. "AlDouri has decided to sever ties with al-Qaeda and sign up to the programme of the national resistance, which includes routing Islamist terrorists and opening up dialogue with the Baghdad government and foreign forces," al-Jashaami said.

Al-Douri has decided to deal directly with US forces in Iraq, according to al-Jashaami. He figures in the 55-card deck of "most wanted" officials from the former Iraqi regime issued by the US government.

In return, for cooperating in the fight against al-Qaeda, al-Douri has asked for guarantees over his men's safety and for an end to Iraqi army attacks on his militias.

Recent weeks have seen a first step in this direction, when Baathist fighters cooperated with Iraqi government forces in hunting down al-Qaeda operatives in the volatile Diyala province and in several districts of the capital, Baghadad.

This could be game, set, and match for the Iraq War. Some smaller insurgent elements assisted in clearing Baqubah as a test to see whether an alliance with Americans would work. Apparently, the experiment worked. If al-Douri accepts the authority of the elected Iraqi government, then almost all of the resistance in western Iraq will disappear -- leaving AQI very exposed.

[txhurl]

I guess we need to put together a Who is Al-Douri thread, like we used to do in the old days.

Childhood, background, curriculum vitae, etc.

This is a strange tack in the war.

[jveritas]

I agree. I would like to wait few more days to confirm if this story is true, and I greatly hope that it is true.

[freedomdefender]

Im not sure the Baathists are the ones giving us the most problems.

The Baathists were Saddam's party. Why do we like them all of the sudden?

[1035rep]

Bookmarked

[tcrlaf]

The Baathists have nasicly been the mourderous criminal gang of Iraq. Killing Americans for whoever paid the most.

They may be brutal killers, but they are not stupid. They see the changes in the wind, and want to be on the winning side.

Remember, it was AQ seeing the opportunity to force a US withdrawal (Thanks to our Democrat traitors) that kicked off this “Civil War” in the 1st place!

[Southack]

Right. We’re identifying 1,500 bodies per month (i.e. captured or killed such that a body is in hand for the stats).

So that’s a *very* conservative number. Instantaneous kills on a battlefield are seldom the majority of casualties.

If you had to break it down historically, it would look something like this:
1. Most people survive each battle
2. People wounded in action
3. People killed in action
4. People missing in action
5. People captured

Those stats are only counting a subset of item #3 above. For instance, a body sufficiently buried or vaporized by an artillery shell or aircraft bomb won’t be included in the above count because there’s no body realistically available for a quick batttlefield stat count.

Items #2 and #4 are interesting because medical care comes into play. If the terrorists can match our level of medical care (impossible, but for the sake of argument and to be conservative) then they are experiencing a fairly known level of deaths long after the battle ends.

Moreover, significant wounds tend to take volunteer fighters completely out of the war. It wouldn’t be ludicrous to think that more than a few wounded terrorists went back home to be cared for by their families.

Notice that we don’t see videos of wounded terrorists doing any fighting...

Now, consider that on our side we expect from our historical experience to see about 8 times the number of wounded as dead/captured.

Well, extrapolated to the enemy (under the above conservative condition that their medical care is as good as ours, which it isn’t), that means that the 60,000+ enemy bodies that we’ve counted so far have at least another 480,000 wounded to go along with them.

Now, the word “casualties” means dead and wounded. So that’s a minimum of 540,000 enemy casualties so far in this war.

Minimum.

And this is in a nation of 17 million people, with only half of that population male (i.e. 8.5 million), and some 5+ million males who voted in both of the last two Iraqi elections (i.e. they are probably less likely to be a terrorist).

In that remaining 3.5 million there are some too young, some too old, and some too ill/feeble (or even ideologically disinclined to fight us)...and in whatever is left you’ve got 540,000 casualties.

Frankly, that’s devastating to the enemy. 1 to 2% foreign terrorists coming in isn’t going to replace losses on that scale. The above numbers hint at something like 1.6 million Iraqis who are both against us as well as *able* to fight.

That means the core warrior class opposed to us has suffered a 33.75% casualty rate (minimum...could be very much greater).

It’s a thing of great beauty.

[PhilDragoo]

If we don’t bring down the Iranian regime, it won’t matter whether we largely put an end to this war and we’ll be leaving the Kurds and Iraqis and others in the region to the IRI.

The head of the dog biting us in Iraq is in Iran. And of course the ahole is in Damascus.

Cleaning the streets in Baghdad is good, but the job ain't over til we take out the trash in Tehran.

Regarding Howdy Douri, perhaps he has all the joy and freedom of action of Che in Bolivia or Denzel Washington in the final scene of Man on Fire. Karma is like that.

But I'm willing to compromise: one rope, two nooses; on one side of the limb on a camel: al-Douri; on the other, on an ass: al-Sadr. Yee-hah and it's all good.

Candygram for Ahmoud Mongo:

[miliantnutcase]

We need the baathists to keep the filthy iranian backed shiites in check. Balance of power. I think from the beginning we should have kept a few of Saddam’s generals in charge of the military. Most of them would have done anything they were told as long has they got a paycheck.

[festus]

You’d better duck you yankee vermin !

[Salvation]

Did that get posted? I missed it today.

[txhurl]

Well, if this is true expect an MSM poll on Dearborn Iraqis declaring that the U.S. has propped up a Saddamist mass-murderer. It’s gonna be damned hard to present this, even though Maliki does needs to be retired.

[potlatch]

The ass is in hiding!

[Fido969]

You don’t execute your new best asset..you merely watch him very carefully.

Keep your friends close - and your enemies closer.

[LanaTurnerOverdrive]

He’s implicated in gassing the Kurds!

So was Saddam, which didn't stop us from cozying to him for several more years, which we thought was to our benefit. We've had worse bedfellows in the world of realpolitik.

[gonzo]

It’s time for a pic of Sadr with a bullseye on him. Nobody needs the bastard alive anymore ................... FRegards

[potlatch]

Good idea!!

[Tunehead54]

Ping! Wake up! ;-)

[Enchante]

Great photos! Let’s see, one is a psychotic loon and the other just happens to be one, too.

[Califreak]

Now if only Hillary and Obama would just STFU.

They are inviting disaster with this talk of resignation and Pakistan.