THE DEMOCRATS--OUT OF THE LOOP AND BEHIND THE CURVE:

US sees tide turn on Iraq insurgents: The resistance, though fractured, still tests coalition. By Dan Murphy, 12/29/03, CS Monitor)

Surveying Tikrit from their compound on a bluff high above the Tigris River, a short distance from where Saddam Hussein was captured two weeks ago, America's military commanders are convinced they've finally turned the corner against the insurgency in the former dictator's home base.

Attacks on soldiers have dropped steeply in the Tikrit area over the past month. After more than six months of intensive raids, foot patrols, and intelligence gathering, commanders believe they have tapped into the rhythm of the insurgency. "We're making steady, [unstoppable] progress,'' says Lt. Col. Steve Russell, who commands the 1st Battalion of the 22nd Infantry. [...]

[T]though attacks on coalition forces have fallen across the country, to about 15 a day from more than 30 a day in early November, Iraqis are still wary of violence. "We feel like we're in a ring of fire,'' says Abu Junaidi, a security guard at an apartment building that was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade last week. "We're no closer to peace."

To be sure, the methods used in Tikrit may yield fruit in other parts of the country. In Tikrit, US forces have been able to hopscotch from one captured insurgent to the next as Hussein loyalists have cracked under interrogation, a painstaking process that led to key Hussein aides and less well-known financiers who were using local businesses around Tikrit as fronts for attacks on US forces.

Troops say Hussein's capture deprived local insurgents of their motivation. "Their sails may have been full, but with Saddam captured, the wind dropped,'' says Russell.

Of the 55 officials and Hussein aides on the original "deck of cards" most-wanted list, only 13 are still at large. On Saturday, the US announced $1 million rewards for information leading to the arrest of 12 of the remaining fugitives.

The most senior official still at large, Izzat Ibrahim al-Duri, has a $10 million price on his head. Mr. Duri has been described by some US officials as a key figure in the insurgency, though most Iraqis find this hard to believe. Even under Hussein, when jokes about the president were dangerous, his No. 2 was a frequent figure of fun to Iraqis. Most people here saw him as a bumbling sycophant.

But one man whose importance to the insurgency is beyond doubt was No. 4 on the list, Abid Hamid Mahmoud al-Tikriti, a Hussein cousin who ran the Special Security Organization, the top-tier in Hussein's sprawling security apparatus dedicated both to protecting to Baath leaders and to spying on them.

Mr. Tikriti's arrest last June was, in hindsight, the beginning of the end for the network of insurgents in and around Tikrit, says Russell. "When we captured No. 4 it gave us some key documents and information,'' he says.

As with the economy, by the moment at which Democratic criticism of the Administration became most heated, the situation had already turned.

Posted by Orrin Judd at December 28, 2003 7:52 PM