One Utah

Izzat Ibrahim ad-Douri was the former number two of deposed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. I still have a deck of cards with his picture. Ad-Douri was erroneously reported captured in September 2004 and a false report of his death came out in November 2005. Last March, he made an audiotape address to the Arab League summit. Through intermediaries, he was interviewed by Time Magazine last July. Nine days ago he was confirmed as the new leader of the banned Iraqi Baath Party. Perhaps the triumphalism on the right-wing blogs about Saddam Hussein’s execution was misplaced. Even at the time of his capture, Saddam wasn’t leading the insurgency.

In the Time interview, he declared that 95 percent of the operations against the occupation are planned and supervised by the “Iraqi army.”

I wrote to President Bush at the start of the occupation and after the capture of President Saddam Hussein via a friend in the official Arab circles. After painting a clear picture of the course of the killing and destruction, I warned him against the outcome of pursuing this path and of its dangers, for America, for Iraq and finally for the world as a whole. I pointed out to him that America’s enemies would come together in Iraq from every place in the world to take revenge on it and that Iraq would be transformed into a world center for terrorism and the manufacture and export of terrorism in its many different forms. Then the mighty people of Iraq would rise up, and America would lose much and regret what it had done. I said, “I know that you are courageous, and courage calls for a decision to withdraw immediately from Iraq.” Now everything that I mentioned has been realized.

Juan Cole points out, in an excellent post, that President Bush is mistakenly fixated on what he thinks is an Al Qaeda threat in Iraq (emphasis added):

[T]he main problem is not “al-Qaeda,” which is small and probably not that important, and anyway is not really Bin Laden’s al-Qaeda. They are just Salafi jihadis who appropriated the name. When their leader, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, was killed, it didn’t cause the insurgency to miss a beat. Conclusion: “al-Qaeda” is not central to the struggle. Izzat Ibrahim Duri and the Baath Party are probably the center of gravity of the resistance.

Headquartered somewhere in Syria, ad-Douri continues to elude capture despite a $10 million reward. Although President Bush didn’t mention ad-Douri’s name last night, he did threaten war with Syria.

This entry was posted Thursday, January 11th, 2007 at 7:01 pm and is filed under George W. Bush, Iraq, This Blog, War. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.