Dean's World

The NY Time missed it (no supprise). Power Line only looks at only a small part of the problem, but are correct as far as they go.

There is more than one type of terrorists fighting in Iraq.

Those who were fired from their jobs in the military and other government institutions of the Baathist party and want to see it return.

Those that are suicide bombers crossing the open borders from Syrai and Iran who want a Taliban-style Iraq.

Different goals but the same terrorist activites to that end. It is this alliance between the die-hard Baathists and the network of foreign terrorists, mostly under the command of Abu Musab Zarqawi, that make them effective.

I have no doubt it is the recent laptop seized that gave up the information that recently allowed the military to attack the important bases and way stations for foreign fighters crossing the border from Syria.

BTW it is Syria that funds training of these border crossers.

After deciding that a person is fit to conduct a "martyrdom operation," Syrian intelligence trains him on how to disguise his identity and how to handle explosives and ammunitions. Radical mullahs supplement this with heavy doses of hard-line religious teaching. The volunteer is then taken across the desert in eastern Syria, through the porous borders, into the Sunni triangle in Iraq, where he is housed by members of the former Baathist intelligence and security network. The second leg of the journey is to a safe house in Baghdad, where he is assigned a target to blow up or sent to certain areas to fight the Americans or the new Iraqi army and police forces.

We were also facing Soviet efforts to undermine any new government in West Germany.