http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,357084,00.html
Commander: Al Qaeda in Iraq Is at Its Weakest
Thursday, May 22, 2008
MACDILL AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. — The Al Qaeda terror group in Iraq
appears to be at its weakest state since it gained an initial foothold
in the aftermath of the U.S.-led invasion five years ago, the acting
commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East said Wednesday in an
Associated Press interview.
Army Lt. Gen. Martin Dempsey, who assumed interim command of U.S.
Central Command on March 28, acknowledged that Al Qaeda remains a
relentless foe and has not disappeared as a serious threat to
stability. But he said an accelerated U.S. and Iraq campaign to
pressure Al Qaeda has paid big dividends.
"Our forces and the Iraqi forces have certainly disrupted Al Qaeda,
probably to a level that we haven't seen at any time in my
experience," said Dempsey, who served in Iraq in the initial stages as
a division commander and later as head of the military organization in
charge of training Iraqi security forces.
"They can regenerate, and do from time to time," he added in the
interview in his office at Central Command headquarters.
Dempsey was in Iraq last week on a journey that also took him to
Lebanon, where he consulted with the government and military
commanders on their approach to dealing with Iranian-backed Hezbollah
fighters.
In separate remarks at a military conference just a few miles from
Dempsey's headquarters in Tampa, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said
the Islamic extremist movements like Al Qaeda have been "built on an
illusion of success" yet in some ways pose a more daunting challenge
today than on Sept. 11, 2001.
Gates described these extremist groups as more diffuse and less
reliant on a single figure like Usama bin Laden.
"It has become an independent force of its own, capable of animating a
corps of devoted followers without direct contact," Gates told an
international conference sponsored by U.S. Special Operations Command.
He said this adversary is now "capable of inspiring violence without
direct orders."
Dempsey, who was the Central Command deputy until Adm. William Fallon
abruptly resigned amid re****ts that his views on Iran differed with
those of the White House, is expected to remain as the acting
commander until Gen. David Petraeus ****fts from his post as top
commander in Iraq, probably in September. Petraeus's Senate
confirmation hearing is scheduled for Thursday.
Earlier Wednesday, the Army general who oversees U.S. commando
operations in the Middle East said that Al Qaeda in Iraq has yet to be
vanquished but is increasingly running out of places where local
Iraqis will accommodate the group's extremist ideology.
"Is he still a lethal and dangerous threat to us? Absolutely," Maj.
Gen. John Mulholland said in an interview with re****ters at the
headquarters of U.S. Special Operations Command, the organization with
global responsibility for providing Army Green Berets, Navy SEALs and
other commandos to combat terrorism.
Of the approximately 155,000 U.S. troops in Iraq, about 5,000 are
special operations forces, who not only hunt and attack terrorist
targets but also help train Iraqi security forces and work with local
Iraqi governments.
Mulholland acknowledged that Al Qaeda, which U.S. intelligence says is
led by foreign terrorists but is populated mainly by local Iraqis
seeking to establish a radical Islamic state, still poses a major
challenge in the Mosul area of northern Iraq and has occasionally
slipped back into areas like Anbar province in western Iraq.
"Do we think he can at least try to regain a foothold in Anbar
province? Yes, we do think he's trying to do that," Mulholland said.
While U.S. officials do not believe Al Qaeda is succeeding in
re-establi****ng a significant presence in Anbar — which the group was
forced to abandon a year ago as local Sunni Arabs turned violently
against it — it does appear that small Al Qaeda cells can still slip
into isolated areas and make trouble, he said.
"I don't want to paint a picture — or to convey to you in any way —
that Al Qaeda in Iraq is being completely destroyed or rendered
irrelevant, because that's not the case," he said. "They are still
potentially a threat capable of death and destruction against the
Iraqi people and our own forces there. But it is not something he can
do easily any more."
Separately, Adm. Eric Olson, the commander of U.S. Special Operations
Command, told a group of re****ters that "the nature of the threat"
posed by Iran's sup****t for anti-U.S. forces in Iraq is unclear.
He made the remark in response to a question about the ability of U.S.
special operations forces to meet the Iranian challenge.
"It's clear that there is some lethal aid originating from across the
Iranian border," Olson said. "We can't say what the origin or the
source of that is. So we are uncertain about our overall ability
because we are uncertain of the nature of the threat. But I would say
in general that special operations forces are well prepared and well
equipped to meet the nation's expectations in that regard."
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