As many as 200,000 insurgents are probably operating in Iraq, which, if true, would outnumber US forces in the country. I found this tidbit yesterday in an AFP report at Turkish Press.Com. Further search finds the same story in the 4 Jan online edition of The Times (UK). This confirms what sources of mine with contacts in Iraq here in Oman tell me. These people have been saying the insurgency has been growing very quickly for months now. Typically, of course, this is not being picked up by mainstream media sources in the US... Here is the report:
Iraqi insurgents now outnumber coalition forces
By James Hider
The head of intelligence services in Baghdad says that there are more than 200,000 fighters
IRAQ'S rapidly swelling insurgency numbers 200,000 fighters and active supporters and outnumbers the United States-led coalition forces, the head of the country's intelligence service said yesterday.
The number is far higher than the US military has so far admitted and paints a much grimmer picture of the challenge facing the Iraqi authorities and their British and American backers as elections loom in four weeks.
"I think the resistance is bigger than the US military in Iraq. I think the resistance is more than 200,000 people," General Muhammad Abdullah Shahwani, director of Iraq's new intelligence services, said....
More here and
here
Given all this, I will be fascinated to watch how these putative elections in Iraq are going to proceed. I wonder how Bushco will spin it all if only a small percentage of the population turns out --- let's be charitable and say, what? 15%?? And of those few, how many will be blown up at the polling stations....