Minor Thoughts from me to you

The fight in Baqubah continues. Drilling for Justice

American losses include one soldier killed in action, with 21 wounded. One Bradley and one Stryker have been destroyed. The low numbers of friendly casualties have been largely due to the slow, methodical clearing operation where success is not measured against the clock. In meeting after meeting, I have seen Townsend stress to his subordinate commanders the importance of moving deliberately and at their own pace. Given the massive amounts of IEDs that have been found, my guess is that we might have taken dozens more killed by now if the clearing operation had been rushed.

Fortunately, the Iraqi people are eager to help.

Other AQI edicts included beatings for men who refused to grow beards, and corporal punishments for obscene sexual suggestiveness, defined by such "loose" behavior as carrying tomatoes and cucumbers in the same bag. These fatwas were not eagerly embraced by most Iraqis, and the taint traveled back to the Muftis who sat in supreme judgment. Locals, who are increasingly helpful in pointing out and celebrating the downfall of AQI here, said that during the initial Arrowhead Ripper attack the morning of the 19th, AQI murdered five men. Townsend's men found the buried corpses behind an AQI prison, exactly where they'd been told to look for the group grave. Locals also directed Townsend's men to a torture house. Peering through a window, American soldiers saw knives, swords, bindings and drills. AQI is well-known for its macabre eagerness to drill into kneecaps, elbows, ribs, skulls, and other parts of victims.

One local Mufti who was said to have always worn a hood and sunglasses"”and to have somehow disguised his voice"”was pointed out to the Iraqi Army this weekend, who promptly captured him. Iraqi officials said today that although they did not previously know that this man was a Mufti, his name had been on their target list. The Mufti is being questioned and his name has not been released.

Yes, many of AQI's top leaders may have escaped -- but others may not have.

There are conflicting signals about how many of the AQI leadership escaped before Arrowhead Ripper launched. This weekend's capture of a possible high-value target in Baqubah indicates that not all AQI leaders successfully fled the city before the attack.

Media reports indicating that many top leaders escaped before Arrowhead Ripper began appear to be mostly true. But other information suggests some AQI leaders are trapped just down the road from where I write. In addition to the seven men who were caught trying to escape while dressed as women, there is information that some AQI leaders remain trapped in a constricting cordon.

Meanwhile, the battle for Baghdad continues as well. Iraq: We Won?

That's because Baghdad is the home of Saddam's staunchest supporters. These guys are prime candidates for war crimes prosecutions, for the many atrocities committed by Saddams' secret police over the decades. While the government has been willing to offer amnesty to many lower ranking Baath party members, the Baghdad neighborhoods and suburbs are full of people considered too dirty to qualify. This is the no-surrender crowd. But let's face it, these guys are also all over the lists Shia death squads carry. Iran has even offered cash rewards for the deaths of many Saddam lieutenants who were involved in the 1980s Iran-Iraq war, or subsequent murders of Shia clergy. The Kurds have their death lists as well. These are desperate and dangerous people.

Saddam's henchmen were no dummies. They were smart enough, and resourceful enough, to build a police state apparatus that kept Saddam in power for over three decades. For the last three years, that talent has been applied to keeping the henchmen alive and out of jail. Three years of fighting has reduced the original 100,000 or so core Saddam thugs, to a few thousand diehards. Three years ago, there were hundreds of thousands of allies and supporters from the Sunni minority (then, about five million people, now, less than half that), who wanted to be back in charge. Now the remaining Sunni Arabs just want to be left in peace. Thus the Sunni nationalists of Baqouba are shooting at, and turning in, their old allies from Saddams Baath party and secret police. This isn't easy for some of these guys, but it's seen as a matter of survival. While the Battle of Baqouba is officially about rooting out al Qaeda, and hard core terrorists, it's also about taking down the Baath party bankers and organizers who have been sustaining the bombers with cash, information and encouragement.

Unfortunately, the media is still unable to report on the true story. Instead, they get caught up in irrelevant details.

Both the terrorists and U.S. troops know that victory has been defined as several weeks with no bombs going off in Baghdad. The media is keeping score, and they use their ears and video cameras. No loud bangs and no bodies equals no news. That's victory.

Not really. The real war is within the Iraqi government. The terrorists lost two years ago, when the relentless slaughter of Moslem civilians turned the Arab world against al Qaeda. Journalists missed that one, but not the historians. The war in Iraq has always been about Arabs demonstrating that they can run a clean government, for the benefit of all the people, not just the tyrants on top. So far, there have lots of victories and defeats in this, and no clear decision overall.

It's very easy to explode a bomb on cue, for the media. It's part of information warfare. As long as the media believes that a suicide bomber represents an effective strategy, Baghdad will continue to be filled with suicide bombers. Why not? Right now terrorists know that strapping a bomb to your waist and blowing yourself up will lead your enemy to decide that he's being defeated.

Let's recognize suicide bombs for what they really are -- a desperate, last-ditch attempt at influence. Let's mock the force that's so weakened that it can only fight us by wiping itself out one fighter at a time. Then let's ignore the bombings as the distraction that they are and focus on the real task -- helping the Iraqis learn how to run a clean government.

Our government is dirtier than it should be -- but it's still better than Iraq's. Let's help their government become at least as clean as ours is.