Current Events — HabitableZone

Current Events

"The Triumph of U.S. Intel"

Here.

...Behind the headline attacks on our soldiers and Iraqi civilians, we've been killing 50 to 70 hardcore terrorists and renegades each week, while arresting hundreds. We've busted more and more key Ba'athist officials. Now Saddam's going to have to celebrate New Year's Eve without a single bottle of Dom Perignon.

How have we done it? The old-fashioned way. By data-mining the enemies of our enemies. By listening to all sides and testing their claims against each other. By exploiting captured files. By appealing to both selfish and selfless interests. By exploiting family and tribal connections. And by laying down hard cash.

Our greatest advantage has been the one the media ignore: Few Iraqis wanted the Ba'athists back. As they began to feel more confident of American resolve, they offered ever more tips about hide-outs and arms caches, sometimes for money, sometimes because they believed in freedom - or just because they didn't want combat in their neighborhoods. In not a few cases, the undiminished arrogance and brutality of the thugs who remained at large made them their own worst enemies.

As we wait for the details behind Saddam's capture, want to know why we got Uday and Qusay? The reward was tempting. But the deciding factor for their unhappy host was more visceral: Saddam's boys smacked around his wife. At that point, our money and the promise of relocation abroad became irresistible. Uday and Qusay signed their own death warrants with a temper tantrum.

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