Blind in Baghdad
By John Prados
January/February 2005 pp. 18-20 (vol. 61, no. 01) © 2005 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
Last November the United States began its pre-Iraqi election offensive with a full-scale assault on Falluja, then said to be the center of the resistance to the coalition occupation and the Iraqi interim government. With newly trained Iraqi government troops showcased in the attack, U.S. commanders intended to break the back of the resistance. Instead, Falluja furnished additional evidence that the United States still does not comprehend the nature of its adversaries.
The attack on Falluja made rapid progress, with the weeklong battle ending in mopping up efforts. But the insurgents had disappeared, not fought, except for those left to keep the Americans occupied. Other insurgent groups simultaneously made numerous attacks of their own in Baghdad, Mosul, and elsewhere, including the car-bombing of a heavily protected convoy bearing Amb. Charles A. Duelfer, director of a principal U.S. intelligence unit, the Iraq Survey Group. With total numbers of American casualties (killed and wounded) having passed 10,000, and more than a thousand deaths in Iraq since July 2003--when an overconfident President George W. Bush exclaimed "Bring "em on!"--how is it possible that Americans have yet to understand the enemy?
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