Iraq Prime Minister Maliki plans 5-year war against insurgents
source: http://www.upi.com/Emerging_Threats/2009/07/16/Maliki-plans-5-year-war-against-insurgents/UP...
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According to Iraqi officials, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is making plans for his beleaguered government to wage a five-year war against al-Qaida jihadists and other insurgents as the United States withdraws its military forces.
To do that would mean building up the Shiite-dominated government's intelligence capabilities. The problem is that the various security services established under the Americans' tutelage are wracked by sectarian rivalries and rampant corruption, with agendas that do not always follow that of the central government.
This, along with a drastic drop in oil revenue because of lower prices, could derail the strategy ascribed to Maliki.
A few weeks ago, as Maliki and his closest associates were mapping out their strategy, his interior minister, Jawad al-Bolani, called for a shift from military operations to a "war of intelligence" to crush the extremist groups that remain active following the U.S. "surge offensive" that was the Bush administration's last hurrah in Iraq.
"I do believe that launching major military operations against al-Qaida is no longer needed and that there is a need to activate the intelligence side," he declared amid a renewed frenzy of suicide bombs in Baghdad and other cities.
Maliki said in May that Iraqi forces were ready to take over the country's security but conceded that his government still needed a lot of help gathering intelligence to be able to hammer the insurgent groups.
The plan, as it stands right now, calls for identifying and tracking al-Qaida units, Iranian-financed "Special Groups" of Shiite extremists and groups affiliated with Al-Awda, the successor to Saddam Hussein's now-outlawed Baath Party.
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To do that would mean building up the Shiite-dominated government's intelligence capabilities. The problem is that the various security services established under the Americans' tutelage are wracked by sectarian rivalries and rampant corruption, with agendas that do not always follow that of the central government.
This, along with a drastic drop in oil revenue because of lower prices, could derail the strategy ascribed to Maliki.
A few weeks ago, as Maliki and his closest associates were mapping out their strategy, his interior minister, Jawad al-Bolani, called for a shift from military operations to a "war of intelligence" to crush the extremist groups that remain active following the U.S. "surge offensive" that was the Bush administration's last hurrah in Iraq.
"I do believe that launching major military operations against al-Qaida is no longer needed and that there is a need to activate the intelligence side," he declared amid a renewed frenzy of suicide bombs in Baghdad and other cities.
Maliki said in May that Iraqi forces were ready to take over the country's security but conceded that his government still needed a lot of help gathering intelligence to be able to hammer the insurgent groups.
The plan, as it stands right now, calls for identifying and tracking al-Qaida units, Iranian-financed "Special Groups" of Shiite extremists and groups affiliated with Al-Awda, the successor to Saddam Hussein's now-outlawed Baath Party.
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