Guerrilla force could number 5,000

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/148260_insurgency14.html

WASHINGTON -- The senior American commander in the Middle East said yesterday that the American-led occupation in Iraq faces no more than 5,000 guerrilla fighters, but that they are increasingly well organized, well financed and gradually expanding their attacks to the country's previously calm north and south.

His estimate of the scale of the shadowy armed opposition in Iraq, the most precise thus far from a top commander, came in a broad outline of the military obstacles his forces face.

The officer, Army Gen. John Abizaid, said that loyalists to Saddam Hussein -- not foreign terrorists, as some Bush administration officials have said -- pose the greatest danger to American troops and to stability in Iraq. He said these Baathist groups and other extremists are capitalizing on the nation's political and economic turmoil to hire unemployed "angry young men" to do much of their "dirty work."

Is this another Bushovic lie?

Perhaps the military knows better than the CIA. I hope this is not just General Abizaid's attempt at propaganda. I hope this is not just his attempt to please the Bushovics, like when some cowardly CBS exec decided to censor their Reagan mini-series.

General Abizaid's "5000 enemy soldiers" sounds like that lie-factoid we were told when big oil claimed that drilling in Alaska's wildlife preserve would only disrupt 4 square miles, when really it would destroy perhaps a thousand or a million of times that amount of area.

I would like to ask the General a few other questions. Like...

What does he say about finding WMD? What about the yellowcake myth? And in the General's oppinion, does oil have anything to do with Bush's dirty little war?

Once I've been lied to several times, I have to admit, I become pretty skeptical. I lived thru the Viet Nam era, so I've heard all these lies from government generals before. I remember that "Vietnamization," after years of hopefull government predictions, turned out to be an ugly, costly, useless war, that made a lot of money for the people I now call the Bushovics.

It looks to me, and the CIA, like there are over a billion Muslums out there in the world, and that they are all becomming increasingly disapointed in Amerika because of Bush's Iraqi invasion.

I lived through the Vietnam War too. I've heard news politized when it was much more difficult to cover up from a true reporter.

Dimbo's war smells like CENTCOM is laundering all info through the White House first. I doubt the CIA would, especially after Wilsons' wife was burned by someone with a personal vendetta from within the administration.

nt