U.S. Admits Guerilla War in Iraq

High-ranking officials of the Bush administration, primarily U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, had previously maintained that the attacks were the random and unorganized efforts by the remnants of Saddam’s forces.

As a child of a Christian Lebanese family, Abizaid doesn’t fit the profile of a typical US officer. He has also set himself apart from his peers by declaring US evidence for the presence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq ‘insufficient’.

Having taken over as CENTCOM Commander from Gen. Tommy Franks on July 8, General Abizaid addressed the US Congress and said that the US faces a classic localized, low-level guerilla war waged by the Special Republican Guards, Special Security Units, Baath Party operatives, and Iraq Intelligence Service personnel. Abizaid observeded that such a war is termed "low-intensity conflict" according to US military doctrine, but is also accurately described as a guerilla war.

Foreign News Services / Istanbul / TURKEY