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Sons'
killings change little in Iraq
By B Raman
Will the reported deaths of Uday and Qusay, the sons of former president Saddam
Hussein of Iraq, weaken the attacks against the US troops in the Sunni triangle
in central Iraq?
That is the hope everyone in the Bush administration concerned with the conduct
of military operations in Iraq is expressing. Will the hope materialize or turn
into yet another instance of wishful thinking as happened to the expectations
voiced before the war that the Iraqi people were waiting eagerly to be
liberated and would welcome the "liberators"?
The widely-expressed hope about a turn for the better in the situation is based
on certain assumptions. First, that Saddam Hussein and his two sons were
playing a central role in the coordination and control of the resistance.
Second, that the entire resistance is largely due to the Iraqi fedayeen, with
the role of the foreign jihadi elements as yet only minimal. And third, that
the indigenous fedayeen elements and those in the population supporting them
were motivated more by fear of adverse consequences to them in the event of
their not participating in the resistance should Saddam and his sons return to
power, than by patriotism and hatred for the Americans. The role of the
patriotism of the Iraqi people as a motivating factor has been consistently
underestimated by the US military and intelligence agencies.
It has been argued that if Saddam and his sons were neutralized, there would be
no effective command and control, the fedayeen would be denied local support by
the public which would no longer hesitate to cooperate with the US troops, and
hence would wither away and the foreign elements could be easily managed.
The resistance, involving hit and run raids, ambushes and attacks with rockets,
has been under way for over two months. Certain worrisome aspects (for the US)
need to be underlined. First, the apparent absence of technical intelligence
(TECHINT) regarding the identities and whereabouts of the jihadis despite the
large presence of the National Security Agency (NSA), the Central Intelligence
Agency (CIA) and the Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) on the ground in central
and northern Iraq. Not a single significant arrest or capture attributable to
TECHINT has been reported. It is apparent that the US forces are even unable to
determine from where the rocket attacks are originating.
Contrast this with the ground situation in Pakistan and Afghanistan. In
Pakistan, many of the significant successes of the US intelligence such as the
arrests of Abu Zubaidah, Ramzi Binalshibh, Khalid Sheikh Mohammad and Waleed
bin Attash were due to excellent TECHINT, but in Afghanistan, the frequent
attacks being suffered by the troops of the US, Afghanistan and other countries
are due to a lack of TECHINT of similar quality.
What does this indicate? That the survivors of the al-Qaeda in Pakistan, who
have split into a number of small groups and are no longer able to operate as a
cohesive jihadi formation, are taking risks by communicating through wireless
or electronic means in their desperate attempts to remain in touch with each
other, but in Afghanistan, the survivors of the Taliban, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's
Hizb-e-Islami and the various Pakistani components of Osama bin Laden's
International Islamic Front, operating from sanctuaries in Pakistan, have been
relying more on interception-proof means of communication such as word of mouth
through couriers. When al-Qaeda was a cohesive force before September 11, it
too avoided means of communications susceptible to easy interception.
Second, the flow of human intelligence (HUMINT) from sources located inside the
Iraqi fedayeen groups also has been meager. The US troops have been rounding up
a large number of suspects during their patrolling, but do not appear to have
been able to get any worthwhile intelligence from interrogations.
The most spectacular piece of HUMINT so far was about the exact location of
Uday and Qusay, which is reported to have come from a walk-in source, as
distinguished from a cultivated or planted source. If media reports are to be
believed, the walk-in source was none other than the owner of the house in
which the two sons had taken shelter. It is said that before the US-UK
occupation of Iraq, he had become persona non grata with the Saddam regime and
hence had a ground for anger against the family. It is also said that the sons
had been staying in his house since June, that is, for over a month.
If this version is true, certain conclusions emerge. First, the sons were so
desperate for cover that they did not mind taking shelter in the house of
someone who had suffered under their regime. Second, they had no means of
communication with their followers and supporters through wireless, telephone
or other means or were deliberately avoiding the use of such means of
communications. If they had been using such means, it was very likely that the
US agencies would have obtained TECHINT regarding their location.
And, third, despite their lack of communications with their followers and
supporters, the latter were able to maintain a low, but sustained level of
resistance against the American troops.
After considering all this, one could make the following assessment, which, for
want of further evidence, is still tentative:
The plans for the resistance against the US troops, including the modus
operandi to be followed, the communications drill to be adopted, etc, had been
drawn up long before the invasion of Iraq. They were definitely not improvised
after the occupation. To have maintained even this low level of resistance for
over two months without suffering a single capture of the foot-soldiers of the
resistance is no mean achievement.
The experience gained by the pro-bin Laden jihadis in Afghanistan has played a
role in the planning and execution of the operations. This would indicate that
the degree of involvement of the jihad-innoculated foreign elements from
Afghanistan such as the cadres of Pakistan's Lashkar-e-Toiba has been higher
than estimated by US analysts.
The jihadis have been trained in such a manner as to be able to operate
autonomously in small cells without the need for much centralized command and
control. The autonomy of operations has been not only in respect of ground
strikes, but also intelligence collection and exploitation. Many of the strikes
have been against targets of opportunity and not against pre-selected ones.
The role played by Saddam Hussein and his sons in the coordination and control
and in the motivation is not as high as seemed to have been estimated by the US
analysts. Even if Saddam is ultimately killed or captured, it would be
over-optimistic to expect the jihad to collapse immediately.
The level of popular support enjoyed by the jihadis is considerable.
(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of
India, and, presently, Director, Institute for Topical Studies, Chennai and,
convenor, Observer Research Foundation, Chennai Chapter. E-Mail: corde@vsnl.com
)
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