None of the kidnap victims in Iraq has been as well qualified to observe and analyze their captors as the two French journalists released last week after five months in captivity were. Now that they have returned to France, they have been giving the first details of their ordeal. Their observations should be of considerable interest to Washington and London.
Georges Malbrunot reported that even though many local Iraqis were in the kidnap gangs, Iraq was not the driving force behind much of the insurgency. A ferocious political battle is going on between Iraq’s different power centers and ethnic groups, but the terror attacks that have been claiming lives in scores, mostly Iraqi, were not coming from them. It was Malbrunot’s view that the agenda for the terrorists was set almost entirely by Al-Qaeda, who are less interested in the issue of Iraq than in the wider defeat and humiliation of the United States and its Western allies, wherever it can attack them or those associated with them.
That Malbrunot saw clear evidence of Al-Qaeda among those who kept him captive does not, however, mean that it has always been a base for the organization or that it was so when a Washington-led invasion brought it this present pass. Saddam did not have any truck with it — or even with any moderate Islamic organization. Saddam could doubtless see the danger of giving Al-Qaeda a foothold in Iraq.
So when Washington and London led their coalition allies into Iraq to seize fully primed weapons of mass destruction and smash Al-Qaeda bases, there were neither WMD nor Al-Qaeda. However, in the 21 months since the invasion, Al-Qaeda has appeared in Iraq and is exploiting Iraqi anger at the occupation, to recruit fighters against America and the West. Effectively Washington aimed what it imagined was a knockout blow against a target that was not there. While it struggled to regain its balance, the target appeared. Because the Bush administration had no Plan B, should the Iraqi people not rise up in gratitude and welcome the liberating Americans, Al-Qaeda’s killers swiftly filled the vacuum of influence and control. With the Iraqi police and army melted away, and occupying US troops knowing as little of Iraq as they did of the Arabic tongue, it was relatively simple for Bin Laden’s people to establish themselves, link with the Baathist resistance and begin their reign of disruption and terror.
Thus Bush gave Osama Bin Laden a range of fat and juicy US targets he could never have dreamed of and a reservoir of willing Iraqis to assist him. And according to Malbrunot, he and his organization are deeply grateful to Bush. When, a few weeks before the US presidential elections, Malbrunot asked his guard who he wanted win, Bush or Kerry, the Al-Qaeda man had not doubt as to who his candidate was. It was Bush. With Bush in the White House and brilliant brains like Donald Rumsfeld in the Pentagon assisting him, Al-Qaeda had nothing to worry about recruiting new soldiers to kill and die to create mayhem throughout the world. It seems to have been a very productive partnership.
