http://www.juancole.com/2007/07/few-foreign-fighters-in-iraq-many-are.html
Informed Comment Sunday, July 15, 2007
<snip>
Ned Parker of the LA Times reports that of 19,000 "insurgents" held by
the US military in Iraq, only 135 are foreigners:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-saudi15jul15,0,3132262.story?coll=la-home-center
Think about that when you hear Bush say that the US is fighting
"al-Qaeda" in Iraq or that "al-Qaeda" would take over Iraq if the US
left. The foreigners just are not that important to the guerrilla war.
Only .7% of detainees are foreigners, and unless they run faster than
Iraqis, that is likely their percentage share in the "insurgency," too.
The US is fighting Iraqis in Iraq, who are nationalists of various
stripes, whether religious or secular. Theya re Sunni. They haven't
given fealty to Bin Laden and are not "al-Qaeda."
So you'd think after all the ink spilled on Iranian and Hizbullah
contributions to the troubles in Iraq, that they'd be prominent among
the foreign fighters, right? Wrong. It is not clear that the US has any
Iranians at all in custody. There was a big deal made at the NYT about
one Lebanese Hizbullah guy who may have been a freelancer.
So if they aren't from Iran, where are they from? Saudi Arabia--- 45%!
Only 15% are from "Syria and Lebanon," and I'll bet you that all but
one of those are Sunni. 10% are from North Africa, which is only about
14 guys. North Africa is Sunni.
That is, the numbers Parker pulled out of a US officer in Iraq demolish
the entire image that the Bush administration and the Washington press
corps has been presenting of the war.
Foreign "al-Qaeda" is almost irrelevant to it. Iran is entirely trivial
to it. The Baathist, Allawi-dominated Syrian government is trivial to
it. The Lebanese Hizbullah may not be involved at all, as an
organization. Certainly it is not involved in any significant way.
Which country is providing a lot of foreign suicide bombers? US ally
Saudi Arabia. Has any general or Bush administration official called a
press conference to denounce Saudi Arabia? No. Has Joe Lieberman
threatened it with a war? No. Everything is being blamed on Iran
because powerful American special interests want to get Iran,
regardless of the facts.
There isn't any significant cadre of foreign "al-Qaeda" fighters in
Iraq if this is all we could capture. They can't take over the country
because they are such a tiny group. Everything Bush and Cheney have
said about the nature of the war and the supposed dangers of a US
withdrawal is transparent falsehood.