Without doubt yesterday’s slaughter of more than thirty soldiers and policeman by a suicide bomber in Iraq will divert attention from a seemingly significant development in the government’s war against the men of violence. The military operation which succeeded in freeing an Australian hostage suggests that the authorities are at last beginning to get the measure of their opponents. The full details of the release of Douglas Wood who was seized six weeks ago have not yet been made public. It already seems clear, however, that the rescue was part of a targeted sweep of buildings, almost certainly following a tip or a wider intelligence effort. Iraqi personnel led the raid, backed by US forces but no mention has yet been made of any role played by the Australian Special Forces unit sent to Iraq after Wood was kidnapped.
It may seem hard to believe when the death toll from insurgent violence since the new government’s inauguration a month and a half ago is already approaching one thousand, but there is mounting evidence that the authorities are strengthening their position against the insurgents. The discovery of bunker compounds in the west of the country and the campaign to interdict the movement of men and materiel across the Syrian border have disrupted the flow of supplies.
Meanwhile with better intelligence — which in light of American technological capability must include everything from monitoring mobile phones to spy satellites — the insurgents are finding it more and more difficult to move freely. In addition ordinary Iraqis, even those who may sympathize to some extent with the opposition of the insurgents to the presence of foreign troops, are becoming sickened by the terrible price that is being paid in Iraqi blood. Clearly more and more people are feeling comfortable in providing information to the authorities.
That Iraqis, be they policemen, soldiers or civilians are grimly enduring this onslaught, should be sending the men of violence an important message which is that if the insurgents are prepared to shed so much Iraqi blood now in their campaign against the US-led occupation, how much more would they be happy to shed to crush any and all opposition, should they ever manage to seize power? Iraqis have escaped from one brutal and arbitrary dictatorship. They do not look forward to accepting another. The irony of course is that the longer the insurgency continues, the more it perpetuates the occupation because it gives Washington and its allies the grounds for staying on to support the elected interim government.
On the face of it, the insurgents are defeating their own objectives. This is however to discount the bloody hand of Al-Qaeda which is behind so much of the violence. Its leaders see Iraq simply as another battleground on which to confront the hated Americans. American miscalculations made this so but it is the willing cooperation of hard-line Baathists that continues to make it possible.
