Liberal Think Tanks

The U.S. occupation of Iraq is beginning to resemble Vietnam in more ways than one. American forces under attack are reportedly responding with indiscriminate fire, often killing combatants and innocents alike… The entire village of Auja, Hussein’s hometown near Tikrit, was surrounded by barbed wire and turned into a strategic hamlet, with ID cards issued by U.S. forces needed to enter and exit it.

In early November, the Pentagon civilians ordered the U.S. military in Iraq to launch a heavily armed offensive against suspected strongholds of the resistance, using fighter bombers, laser-guided missiles, gunships and helicopters against targets of questionable importance, such as empty factories and warehouses. “It’s an absolutely insane strategy,” says Bob Boorstin, who oversees national-security policy for the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank.

U.S. commanders said they dealt the insurgents a major blow when they decided Oct. 30 to isolate Auja, surrounding it with fence and razor wire so the sole exit was past a U.S. military checkpoint. Russell said this move severed the insurgency’s intelligence and communications hub from the outside campaign.

Fearful that their conversations might be intercepted, resistance leaders are now reluctant to communicate by telephone or radio and rely instead on passing messages by word of mouth, often depending on younger members of the five inner-circle families, military officers said. But U.S. troops now monitor anyone leaving the village.

They acknowledge, however, that resistance leaders may still be operating from other safe houses in the area, in particular in Abu Ajeel, Qadassiyah, Dawr and downtown Tikrit, where the inner-circle families maintain second homes and farms.