As reflected in CIA classified studies last month, U.S. military and intelligence officials are still trying to understand the various Iraqi insurgency groups that they expect will continue to fight, even after last week's election. The CIA studies included a detailed look at an at-large Iraqi fighter who is motivated to fight because the United States is occupying his country, a senior intelligence official said. "This person, with a tribal background, has a mix of motives including a family grievance, someone was hurt by coalition forces," said the official, who asked not to be identified because the reports are still classified. "There is also [in this Iraqi insurgent] religion and nationalism that results in a view he must fight on to get non-Muslims out of Muslim territory." In looking in depth at one insurgent, the agency was able to describe the group to which the fighter belongs and how it operates, the official said.The CIA last month also updated its analysis of the breadth of the Iraqi insurgency, including Iraqis that are not only former Baathists, "dead enders," but also newly radicalized Sunni Iraqis, nationalists offended by the occupying force and others disenchanted by the economic turmoil and destruction caused by the fighting. Foreign fighters associated with Abu Musab Zarqawi and his al Qaeda-affiliated insurgent group, who once were seen as the prime opponents along with tens of thousands of criminals freed by Saddam Hussein before the war began in 2003, are now described as lesser elements but still a source of danger.
Michael Scheuer, the former CIA analyst who ran the agency's Osama bin Laden section in the 1990s, said yesterday, "The administration doesn't seem to have thought through the continuing danger from foreign fighters." He said countries such as Saudi Arabia and Algeria in the 1980s released imprisoned Islamic radicals to go fight the Soviets in Afghanistan "hoping they would die in the process." Now, Scheuer said, "Iraq is a more attractive fight for those radicals, and the Saudis currently want to unload the firebrands they have at home." The Sunni government in Riyadh is also unhappy with the prospect of a Shiite state on the border, he added, "so they think it is a great thing for their people to do."