Iraqis (and US officers) Deny al-Qaida Fighting U.S. Troops

[Rose Siding]

RAMADI, Iraq - Senior American officials are sending a message that violence against U.S. soldiers in Iraq is increasingly the work of foreign fighters — by implication, Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network.

But Iraqis and American officers on the ground say the evidence is stronger that Iraqis angry at American occupation and Saddam Hussein loyalists are behind most attacks.

The U.S. officers blamed the persistent resistance on disgruntled Iraqis or officials of Saddam's Baath Party who lost out when his regime crumbled. Iraqis say American heavy-handedness in conducting searches and making arrests were recruiting local people to the insurgency.

Still, a drumbeat of comments by Bush administration officials depict the U.S.-led campaign in Iraq as part of the larger war on terrorism and seek to turn the focus away from the threat of Saddam's still unfound weapons of mass destruction.

http://www.statesman.com/news/content/coxnet/iraq/ap_story.html/Intl/AP.V5623.AP-Iraq-Foreign-Fi.html

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