The Saddam-ist / Islamist Resistance Will Win
......... by Scott Ritter July 24, 2004
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The battle for Iraq's sovereign future is a battle for the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people. As things stand, it appears that victory will go to the side most in tune with the reality of the Iraqi society of today: the leaders of the anti-U.S. resistance.
Iyad Allawi's government was recently installed by the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) to counter a Baathist nationalism that ceased to exist nearly a decade ago.
In the aftermath of the first Gulf War, Saddam Hussein's regime shifted toward an amalgam of Islamic fundamentalism, tribalism and nationalism that more accurately reflected the political reality of Iraq.
Thanks to his meticulous planning and foresight, Saddam's lieutenants are now running the Iraqi resistance, including the Islamist groups.
In August 1995, Saddam's son-in-law, Hussein Kamal, defected to Jordan. Fourteen months into the U.S. occupation of Iraq, Kamal's testimony that Iraq's weapons of mass destruction had been destroyed in the summer of 1991 has taken on new relevance, given the fact that to date no WMD have been found.
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=15&ItemID=5926