Secret Saudi intel report: 77,000 Sunni insurgents in Iraq
posted at 7:02 pm on December 18, 2006 by Allahpundit
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As of nine months ago. And most aren’t jihadis: if their intel is right, 60,000 of them are ex-military or Saddam fedayeen. I wrote the other day that the Saudis might form an anti-Shiite alliance with AQ if they end up in Iraq and INDC Bill e-mailed to say I was nuts since Osama’s boys consider the Kingdom their archenemy. Maybe. If the proportion is this lopsided, though, they might not need AQ; they could make a deal with the fedayeen and still harness most of the insurgency’s strength.
Like I say, though, this is a Saudi report. Which means it’s not AQ that they’re most concerned about.
Iran has effectively created a Shi’ite “state within a state” in neighboring Iraq, defying both Iraqi Sunnis and neighboring Sunni nations, according to a Saudi security report.
Iranian military forces are providing Shi’ite militias with weapons and training, Iranian charities are pouring funds into schools and hospitals, and Tehran is actively supporting pro-Iranian Iraqi politicians, the report said…
RAND Corp. senior defense analyst Ed O’Connell said the Iranian intelligence was trying to counter Saddam Hussein’s former formidable spy network, Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS), or the Mukhabarat. Under Saddam’s regime, he said, roughly one of every six Iraqi adults was a paid or unpaid informant — a network that did not disappear with the arrival of the U.S.-led coalition.
There’s reason to be skeptical here, starting with the fact that it’s being leaked now to a conservative American newspaper. The Saudis are worried about Bush pulling out and abandoning the country to Iran; this is their way of sounding the alarm among the pro-war crowd and getting them to apply. Interestingly, though, they place the size of al-Sadr’s militia at only 10,000, trailing far behind the 25,000 members of the Badr Organization, the militia of the rival Shiite party, SCIRI. Al-Sadr has something closer to 40,000 fighters today; the fact that they didn’t inflate the number to alarm war supporters further gives the report some credibility.
New Zawahiri tape coming this week, meanwhile. Our topic: “the truths about the clash between Islam and atheism.” Sounds not at all tedious and predictable.
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Wonderful, just wonderful!!!!!!!
NEMETI IN SYRACUSE on December 18, 2006 at 7:53 PM
i wish there was a clash. so far as i can tell, atheists (or at least ones who present them selves as the face of the atheist “community”) seem to not recognize any dissonance there. i really believe the reaoning is that as long as you’re not under the destructive spell of the malign christchild religion, you’re all together in solidaity with the non-christian cause.
i wish i believed it was more nuanced and less stupid than that, but since the revalation of nancy pelosi not knowing about zarqauwi…
jummy on December 18, 2006 at 8:06 PM
One must refrain from basing conclusions on reports when the topic concerns the Middle-East. In this region loyalties change like the moon. Everyone gets ‘paid.’ No one speaks in public as they do in private and everyone is counting on someone else to do the work. Most have never had a ‘job.’ Most would prefer not to have one. We must face the fact that there is only one answer. Oil revenues. Everyone gets a check. Everyone gets the same amount. Then they can go back to doing what they do best. Getting over on one another.
Griz on December 18, 2006 at 8:38 PM
Yup, and how much Saudi money has gone to finance the 77,000 jihadis? Keep ‘em fightin’ us in Iraq and they won’t have time to attack the Saudi royal family.
Off topic: Michelle is on the Factor and DAMN she looks good! Bill just told her “I think you were right and I was wrong.”
Tony737 on December 18, 2006 at 8:42 PM
This appears to be another manifestation of the demographic problem. And one remedies a demographic problem in three modes: birth, barrenness, and death. Perhaps one somehow puts one’s own women to work bearing children for many years, and then one patiently waits two decades for the babies to become adults. Or perhaps one somehow keeps millions of the enemy’s people from reproducing. Or perhaps one makes them unable even to think of reproducing.
Don’t look at me that way, whoever you are; if I merely do the math, and thereby spare you the necessity to do it yourself, perhaps I might merit some excuse. It seems the West survives by demanding women do their natural work, by making the others unable or unwilling to reproduce, by making an obscene slaughter, or by mixing these three modes. But if any reader knows know how to right a demographic imbalance other than by birth, barrenness, and death, let him tell us.
Kralizec on December 18, 2006 at 8:57 PM
Good analysis Tony; the Saudi’s, et.al., are not unlike most dictators. Create an outside evil (Castro=U.S., Chavez=U.S.)and the “natives won’t turn on you.
right2bright on December 18, 2006 at 10:48 PM
I get liberals telling me all the time that this is why we should have left Saddam in power – because with him there was a balance of power
Rick on December 19, 2006 at 12:26 AM
Once you remember that Saudi Arabia and the UAE have very close ties with Clinton, Gore, and Carter it makes understanding exactly why the left seems to support our enemies much more than President Bush’s actions in Iraq.
I’m sure that Bush went after Saddam because he was a truly evil person but the political reality is that he attacked a Sunni controlled country and has all but given it to their enemy, Shi’a controlled Iran. Even worse we’ve injected democracy into Iraq which most kingdoms in the region view as a very dangerous thing, something they feel they must stop before it reaches their own palace door.
Buzzy on December 19, 2006 at 3:04 AM
At least it is 77,000 insurgents wha aren’t over here.
Dave R. on December 19, 2006 at 5:26 PM
Is the US going to be serious and kick butt, destroy the insurgents of all stripes in a three to four month military offensive, or are they going to order our soldiers to stand out in the open, open targets, like ducks in a shooting gallery, for snipers and IEDs to kill?
Why even bother if our soldiers are merely to be lined up in the open and killed rather than allowed to do what they can do so well, track down and kill as many Jihadis as possible, and blow things up so these roaches cannot hide in some crevice somewhere.
Instead our soldiers are supposed to be “charitable” Social Workers, making a bridge between the Iraqis and the US, good will ambassadors if you will.
Come on! Whose good will are they doing?
Even our so-called allies are giving aid and comfort to the enemy, and trashing US, even though our “allies” (France, Germany, and others) have been, and are totally dependent on US for their safety!
Please,
Stop playing, and stop putting our soldiers out to be slaughtered.
Organize and attack, kill the Jihadis, and secure that land. Don’t let the Jihadis get entrenched, and stop them from killing the Iraqi citizens!
Do it!
William
William2006 on December 20, 2006 at 4:09 AM
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