Sunday, July 08, 2007

Al Qaeda's incredible comeback

Al Qaeda has seemingly managed an overwhelming turnaround. The Pentagon reported earlier this year that its attempts before going to war in Iraq to establish links between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda were contrary to the findings of the intelligence community. In 2005, a CSIS study found that 90% to 96% of the insurgents in Iraq were Iraqi nationals, not foreign elements. Iraq was the location where al Qaeda was having the greatest difficulty establishing a significant presence, even a couple of years after invading it.

Before deserting Afghanistan to invade Iraq, the Bush administration claimed to have decimated al Qaeda leadership, frozen all of its foreign-held assets, and destroyed its bases of operations. Now the latest news is that, in the heat of America's troop surge into Iraq, there are still too few men hunting al Qaeda. It's widely reported that al Qaeda is entrenched in Pakistan, established a stronghold in Iraq, resurged in Afghanistan, and infiltrated England. Could "al Qaeda" have truly mastered such an amazing comeback?

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