Defining the resistance in Iraq - it's not foreign and it's well prepared

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

Scott Ritter bringing explanation and commentary on IED's and "insurgent" tactics.

DELMAR, N.Y. – In the Baghdad suburb of Abu Ghraib is a compound on an abandoned airstrip that once belonged to a state organization known as M-21, or the Special Operations Directorate of the Iraqi Intelligence Service. As a UN weapons inspector, I inspected this facility in June of 1996. We were looking for weapons of mass destruction (WMD). While I found no evidence of WMD, I did find an organization that specialized in the construction and employment of "improvised explosive devices" - the same IEDs that are now killing Americans daily in Iraq.

When we entered the compound, three Iraqis tried to escape over a wall with documents, but they were caught and surrendered the papers. Like reams of other documents stacked inside the buildings, these papers dealt with IEDs. I held in my hands a photocopied primer on how to conduct a roadside ambush using IEDs, and others on how to construct IEDs from conventional high explosives and military munitions. The sophisticated plans - albeit with crude drawings - showed how to take out a convoy by disguising an IED and when and where to detonate it for maximum damage.

Because WMD was what we were charged with looking for, we weren't allowed to take notes on this kind of activity. But, when we returned to our cars, we carefully reconstructed everything we saw.

What I saw - and passed on to US intelligence agencies - were what might be called the blueprints of the postwar insurgency that the US now faces in Iraq. And they implied two important facts that US authorities must understand:
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More: http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/1110/p09s02-coop.html?entryBottomStory

[Tatiana]

1. Hmmm... someone who knows what he's talking about!

Thanks for the article Billy.

[VolcanoJen]

2. Not LBN... locking,

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Thanks!
VolcanoJen
DU Moderator