The Real Story of the Insurgency

At a testy hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee on February 16, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld refused to say how many insurgents are operating in Iraq. "I am not going to give you a number for it because it's not my job to do intelligent (sic) work," Rumsfeld replied. A little later, Rumsfeld claimed that the two most recent assessments of the insurgency provided by the CIA and DIA were classified and couldn't be disclosed. "Frankly, I don't have a lot of confidence in any of them," he said.

While Rumsfeld bobbed and weaved, General Richard Myers sounded triumphant almost two years into the war. "I'd say the insurgents' future is absolutely bleak," Myers said at the same February 16 hearing. He then reversed course a week later, admitting that the insurgency could last anywhere from seven to twelve years. "This is not the kind of business that can be done in one year, two years probably," he told reporters.

The contradictions in these recent exchanges reveal the extent to which the Bush Administration has downplayed or distorted what is knows about the size, strength and structure of an insurgency that only continues to grow. A "pocket of dead-enders" has turned into a mix of former Baathists, Sunni nationalists, Shiite radicals and foreign terrorists numbering as many as 40,000 core fighters and 200,000 sympathizers, according to Iraq's own intelligence chief. Below is a recap of the Administration's tragedy of errors:

June 17, 2003, The New York Times:

"'We see nothing of a higher hand trying to organize these attacks into something you would actually call a guerrilla campaign' said one senior military official. 'These people have no future in a post-Saddam Iraq,' another Pentagon official said."

June 18, 2003, Major-General Ray Odierno, commander US 4th Infantry Division:

"I will never downplay Americans being killed in combat...But from a military perspective, it is insignificant. The [attacks are] having no impact on the way we conduct business on a day-to-day basis in Iraq."

June 18, 2003, Donald Rumsfeld:

"In those regions where pockets of dead-enders are trying to reconstitute, General Franks and his team are rooting them out."

June 18, 2003, Paul Wolfowitz, Deputy Defense Secretary:

"I think these people are the last remnants of a dying cause."

August 25, 2003, Rumsfeld:

"The dead-enders are still with us, those remnants of the defeated regimes who'll go on fighting long after their cause is lost."

April 9, 2004: Rumsfeld:

"You have a mixture of a small number of terrorists, a small number of militias, coupled with some demonstrations and some lawlessness."

April 9, 2004, The New York Times:

"US forces are confronting a broad-based Shiite uprising that goes well beyond supporters of one militant Islamic cleric who has been the focus of US counterinsurgency efforts, US intelligence officials said. That assertion contradicts repeated statements by the Bush administration and American officials in Iraq."

June 25, 2004, Richard Armitage, Deputy Secretary of State:

"We underestimated the enemy, and we didn't destroy him in our initial attack, and he melted away, and we're seeing him again."

June 26, 2004, Schlesinger Report:

"There was not only a failure to plan for a major insurgency, but also to quickly and adequately adapt to the insurgency that followed after major combat operations."

July 9, 2004, Associated Press:

"Contrary to US government claims, the insurgency in Iraq is led by well-armed Sunnis angry about losing power, not foreign fighters, and is far larger than previously thought, American military officials say. The guerrillas can call on loyalists to boost their forces to as high as 20,000 and have enough popular support...that they cannot be militarily defeated. That number is far larger than the 5,000 guerrillas previously thought to be at the insurgency's core."

September 20, 2004, Time Magazine:

"The deputy commander of coalition forces in Iraq, British Major General Andrew Graham, estimates there are 40,000 to 50,000 active insurgent fighters."

September 29, 2004, The Guardian:

"The Bush administration disregarded intelligence reports two months before the invasion of Iraq which warned that a war could unleash a violent insurgency and rising anti-US sentiment in the Middle East."

December 3, 2004, Rumsfeld:

"If you're asking, 'Was there any kind of understanding or agreement that there would likely be a long insurgency afterwards?' I don't believe...that anyone would say that."

January 3, 2004, Mohamed Abdullah Shahwani, Iraqi intelligence director:

"I think the resistance is bigger than the US military in Iraq. I think the resistance is more than 200,000 people."

January 26, 2005, General George Casey:

"If you look back over the last year we estimate we have killed or captured about 15,000 people as part of this counter-insurgency."

February 3, 2005, Rumsfeld:

"The insurgency has clearly been at a level that has been more intense than anticipated."

February 3, 2005, Senator John McCain:

"We went from a few dead enders to killing or capturing 15,000 in the period of a year, and that's why there's a certain credibility problem here as to what the size and nature of the enemy we face...I don't know how you defeat an insurgency unless you have some handle on the number of people that you are facing."

--Additional research by Liliana Segura.

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