Operational Update: Rear Adm. Greg Smith, March 16

From MNF-I.

Iraq is in a tough fight… a fight between a lethal minority who want to destabilize the country by indiscriminately killing innocent men, women and children …executing a campaign of intimidation and terror in order to instill a corrupt and foreign ideology of hate and division … and the overwhelming majority of Iraqis who find such ideology bankrupt and have rejected violence in order to help build the new Iraq. Much of this violence has been carried out by foreign fighters … al-Qaeda foreign fighters … which is the sole topic of my brief to you today.

Not only have Iraqis turned against Al Qaeda, foreign terrorists entering the country are also turning against Al Qaeda.

The indoctrination always used two common themes: Americans were abusing the people of Iraq; and the recruits had a duty to avenge these abuses by joining al-Qaeda’s jihad in Iraq.... During their interrogations, these 48 men told us they were lured here with the promise they would be killing Americans … but they were disappointed that most of the violence they saw was directed at the Iraqi people … fellow Muslims. Again and again, we heard this reality bothered the recruits … this disconnect between the stories they were told as they were recruited and being indoctrinated and the reality of a war against innocent civilians was deeply disturbing … they had not come here to kill Iraqi civilians. They also complained of a different shading of the truth … many of the recruits told us they were promised they would see a victorious al-Qaeda … and instead they found an organization constantly being hunted by security forces and on the run and rejected by the Iraqi people. They felt misled. These foreign terrorists told us that, eventually, they felt discouraged and just wanted to go home. But their al-Qaeda facilitators had their passports and their money … they felt trapped and hopeless.

Admiral Smith also says Al Qaeda is "deeply suspicious of the fighters from other lands". They are suspicious because they know they have lied to recruits to get them to Iraq. Once in Iraq, these foreign fighter see they are only killing Muslims. They don't see the abuse against Muslims at the hands of the Americans. This is why the following occurs.

They told us they were actually relieved to be captured … some of them even cried tears of relief during their initial interrogations … ironically they were relieved having been captured by the very Americans their recruiters said they would kill in Iraq.

You cannot keep lying for very long. Lies told by Al Qaeda are causing the organization to lose membership. Innocent killing of Muslims further degrades support for Al Qaeda. This is why the Sunni Tribes ran them out of Al Anbar. This is why Al Qaeda had to strike a jirga in North Waziristan. Those tribal leaders were voting on the same thing the Al Anbar tribes voted on, namely, to withdraw support from Al Qaeda.

Al Qaeda is an evil organization that will eventually implode upon itself if pressured. Right now, America and NATO are keeping up the pressure. Currently America is creating more pressure on Al Qaeda in their unassailable base, Paksitan.

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