What's Iraq?

"The Bush administration conjures up the image of a strong global al Qaeda movement to motivate America's support for the war.
By contrast, many Americans who oppose our presence in Iraq focus on sectarian hatreds that have come to affect millions of Iraqis. While there is an element of truth to each of these images of our challenge in Iraq, neither is the most accurate way to understand the war.
Consider first the numbers of those fighting in Iraq. Throughout the first three years of the Iraq war, Brookings' estimates of the size of the resistance, based largely on CENTCOM data, ranged from 15,000 to 20,000 fighters. Only about 1,000 to 2,000 al Qaeda were typically in Iraq. Yet these individuals, altogether representing less than 0.1 percent of Iraq's population, have used sabotage and terror and assassination so effectively as to prevent Iraqi economic recovery, the formation of a strong government, or a sense of hopefulness among the Iraqi population.
Admittedly, guerrilla movements are often relatively small, but Iraq's insurgency has been particularly so. Its al Qaeda element, responsible for most of the suicide attacks such as those that terrorized Baghdad April 18, has been downright tiny."

Op-ed by Michael O'Hanlon, Brookings Institution [1]

And how much of the civil war aspect is being provoked by the insurgency or al Qaeda?

source
O'Hanlon, Michael. (The Washington Times). A ruthless foe. April 24, 2007.

posted: wednesday, april 25, 2007, 2:48 PM ET

tags: iraq insurgency