Are Saddam Loyalist Responsible (or Sam's Posit)?

Great Debates
1

For Debate:

I have seen it posited, primarily by the Administration and the Poster named in the thread title that the attacks on are troops spring from the Baathist Regime. I have yet to see any support for this belief, so I’d like to see your evidence or reasoning here. I have I another thread proposed the attacks spring form four sources:

Baathist loyalist
Middle Eastern men who traveled to Iraq for that purpose (btw, thanks Tomndeb for citing for me in that other thread)
Kin of relatives killed in previous engagements
Malcontents seizing the moment

Now I admit that my reasoning is mostly pulled completely out of my ass. However as I said the Administration claims it mostly loyalist and catching Saddam will stem the attacks. Lets see some evidence of that.

2

I very much doubt you’re going to be able to actually prove anything, there just doesn’t seem to be much in the way of information. Also, its just the teensiest bit unfair to label that “Sam’s posit”. He tends to be a loyal supporter of the Party Line, but he certainly didn’t invent it.

The Bushiviks are eager to have us believe that the “insurgents” are of a piece, all cut from the same cloth, all “dead-enders” and fanatic loyalists, etc. you know the drill. Clearly, the last thing they want to be faced with is a broad-based nationalist anti-American guerrilla movement. I empathize, I also regard it as a nightmare.

But we don’t know diddly-squat. The Admin flatly asserts that they know the facts, without a hint of evidence. For all we know, they may be right. But clinging to a theory against all evidence is how we got in this rotten mess to begin with.

The offer of a bounty on insurgents, some $2500, speaks well for the Admin’s sincerity, at least we can be assured that they believe what they are saying, scant comfort though that may be. And if they are right, then the bounty should work, distasteful as it is to offer what will likely be “blood money”. Our soldiers seem to be in no mood to read anybody thier Miranda rights, and I can hardly blame them.

It’s very hard to believe that the former Baathists have any popular support amongst thier recent victims, in certainly flies in the face of common sense. But it wouldn’t be the first time that nationalist fervor and resentment drowned reason.

Now if our leaders are right, and the insurgents are a bunch of hated thugs with no popular support amongst the people, then they will be rooted out damn quick, won’t they? An opportunity to take vengeance on a hated oppressor and cash in sweetly as well? They’ll be lining up around the block! “Rat out a Baathist! Take a number. Now serving #3,117…”

I watch the news pretty closely, I don’t recall hearing any trumpeting of thousands of rounded up insurgents. Or any, for that matter. Admittedly, that is slender evidence on its own, but every day it remains true the case grows stronger. And if it is the case that the main force of Iraqi insurgence has the approval and protection of the Iraqi people, if it is, in fact, a popular front…

Then we are in a world of shit. Can’t win, can’t break even, can’t quit. Nightmare.

3

True, it’s just that he’s been the most vocal advocate of that position round these parts, but duly noted. What I was hoping to see (not being a purveyor of Fox News) is that maybe I’ve missed supporting evidence, or some reasoned claim.

Now, now, you’re being a bit unfair. I seem to recall that we’ve rounded up perhaps a 100 - 400 or so possible insurgents a couple of weeks ago. Here’s a link that sort of supports that, but without figures. I know I’ve seen an estimate recently.

4

In a manner of speaking, the Administration is forced to blame the attacks on “Saddam loyalists.” After all, they’ve been telling the American populace for months now that Joe Iraqi yearns deeply to breathe free, and would be giving US soldiers in Iraq nonstop lovin’ if it wasn’t for fear of reprisals from Saddam’s invisible tentacles.

If you remove the “Saddam loyalists are behind the attacks” rationale, then the conclusion is that the attacks are being conducted by Joe Iraqi – which contradicts the nonstop lovin’ story from before.

5

I’ve heard it posited that if Saddam Hussein is killed/captured, that the Iraqi Shi’a will be more likely to joind in the resistance movement. No backing, just positing.

6

I agree with rjung. What can the administration do to prove that these people (who were not caught or killed) were really Baathist, fedayin, Saddam loyalists, or whatever. It is according to the Bush administrations policy to logically assume that the killings are the work of a very few and they might as well be Saddam loyalists.

Then again, they cant prove that these killings were done by “Abdul Iraqis” either. (I doubt you can find many Iraqis named joe)

7

As I posted in another thread. The Iraqi’s are very big on revenge. If you kill one of their family or embarrass the family patriarch or belittle their women, they will get revenge. In whatever form they can.

8

I don’t think they would stop them. They’d come right out with “We’ve always said it will take a long time to win the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people, and it seems we still have some time left to go. But this is something we’ve known and anticipated all along, and we’ve never said anything to the contrary.”

Then the astute readers would point to some pre-war “they’ll greet us as liberators” quotes, and the administration spin doctors would point to hedge words or make semantic excuses to explain how those quotes actually mean the opposite of what they seem to mean. And the Usual Suspects would go right along with them.

9

Thank you, sir, may I have another?

10

They have evidence and reasoned claims on Fox News now? :eek:

11

Hey now… I didn’t say it was JUST Baathists. I said that they are forming the ‘core’ of the resistance, carrying out larger attacks, funding others, etc.

Nor is the administration saying it’s just Baathists. The administration has maintained all along that it is several groups, pretty much as the OP contends. Baathists, malcontents doing it for money, no doubt some revenge killings (as evidenced by the military’s decision to being paying blood money). They are also saying that there are signs that Answar al-Islam is regrouping and may be getting into the fight, as well as some fighters coming in from outside of Iraq. A real dog’s breakfast.

However, my ‘read’ of the situation is that the real engine behind this is the Baathist regime. Only they have the kind of massive resources needed to carry out larger attacks - remote controlled bombs, tons of C-4 explosive, surface-to-air missiles, and above all hundreds of millions of dollars in financing. As long as they are running around out there, they’ll be causing havoc. Get rid of them, and the rest is marginalized and can be dealt with.

What I don’t see evidence of is a widespread guerrilla movement being fed by the population at large. There’s no sense that Iraqis are rising up en masse to repel the ‘invaders’. It looks to me that the Iraqi people want: A) security. B) a better standard of living, and C) self-determination. As long as they see the U.S. moving in those directions, they’ll give them a chance. At least, it looks that way so far.

12

Sam has helpfully shared a new development in my Reconstruction Thread. The USM forces have begun blood payments.

Finally.

13

Look at the anti-American demonstrations and you see thousands of Iraqis very clearly expressing their feelings even knowing US forces have fired sometimes and killed people. Now, how many pro-American demonstrations have we seen? How the Iraqis feel about the US occupation seems quite clear to me and if they do not all rise it could be because they do not feel like repeating the Warsaw Ghetto experience.

A) Security: The US occupation forces are not providing security and the situation is not getting better. They do not have the capacity to police Iraq without taking losses and they are retreating from police duties. At the same time they are disarming the Iraqis who are then unable to defend themselves. It is interesting to note that Iraqis had more freedom to buy and hold firearms with Saddam Hussein. This is very telling.

B) Better Standard of Living: As is being discussed in the Iraq Reconstruction thread, this is not going well at all.

C) self-determination: they want it right away and the US ain’t granting it.

It’s a mess no matter how you look at it.

14

The interesting thing about this debate, it went from the 4 sources mentioned in the OP to “joe iraqi” killing soldiers. No, he’s probably not, if he were the US would likely be averaging more than one dead per day. 160,000 is a lot of troops, it’s over three times the population of the city I grew up in. Three of them killed at once outside a children’s hospital. Targets must abound. Joe Iraqi would probably love the US to finish up and go home post-haste, might demonstrate to that effect, but will not be attacking his own power supply or lobbing grenades about town, killing some of his own people in the process for God’s sake.

Everything I’ve read from public military sources says that we’re still fighting the war, this seems logical ever since the initial reports of the Ba’ath party “evaporating”, “disappearing”, etc, from Baghdad or from Tikrit…they planned to fight this way. I don’t see a big mystery here. Someone will have to explain to me why that explanation doesn’t fly and we need to blame the general citizenry for things like RPG attacks. It just doesn’t look right.

15

Just a general impression, but RPGs don’t seem very hard to come by in the ME. Maybe I’ve seen to many movies.

16

It’s way way too early for any of us to be saying that there’s a mass, popular, violent guerrilla resistance to the U.S. forces. If there were, the violence would be much heavier than it has been so far.
Sam’s analysis is correct, for now. The old regime obviously pulled a strategic retreat and planned this guerrilla war from the outset. Saddam didn’t get to be Saddam by being stupid.
I’m crossing my fingers and hoping it stays correct, that we don’t get a mass popular uprising. That would be bad.