WASHINGTON – Iraq’s new security forces are heavily infiltrated by insurgents, and the guerrilla groups have access to almost unlimited money to pay for deadly attacks, according to a U.S. defense official who provided new details on the evolution of the rebels.
A significant part of the insurgents’ money is coming from sympathizers in Saudi Arabia, and the Saudi government is neglecting the problem, said the official, who was authorized by the Pentagon to speak on the issue this week.
Money is flowing into Iraq through Syria, the official said.
In both cases, it comes from a diffuse network of supporters, funneled through charities, tribal relations and businesses – not necessarily the same funding networks that transfer money to al-Qaida from Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries, but following a similar model, the official said.
The official said Syria, which has received a great deal more public Bush administration criticism than Saudi Arabia, is a transit point for people and money.
While President Bashar Assad’s government has offered support in stopping this, it can do little to halt Syria’s Baathists from giving money to their Iraqi counterparts, nor can it prevent corrupt border guards from letting weapons and fighters into Iraq, the official said.
Saddam Hussein also had about $1 billion stashed away in Syria, the official said. About half of that money has been recovered, the defense official said, but the rest may be available to the insurgency.
The official described a country where a fearful citizenry doesn’t fully accept the concepts of Western law and order and remains unwilling to take their future into their own hands, where police are often corrupt and the security forces are “heavily infiltrated” by insurgents.
In some cases, members of the Iraqi security services have developed sympathies and contacts with the guerrillas; in other cases, infiltrators were sent to join the groups, the official said.
U.S. military analysts foresee little chance of the insurgency evaporating during the next few years, the official said. Attacks have increased by about 25 percent since the beginning of Ramadan, the Islamic holy month that began last weekend, with most of the attacks car bombs and strikes on civilians, rather than direct assaults on U.S. forces.
“The overall resistance in Iraq is popular and is getting more popular in the Arab world,” said Vince Cannistraro, a former counterterrorism chief for the Central Intelligence Agency.
Other developments
* The British government agrees to a U.S. request to transfer 850 British troops from southern Iraq to an area near Baghdad so U.S. troops can be shifted to insurgent hotspots.
* The highest-ranking U.S. soldier charged in the Abu Ghraib prison case is sentenced to eight years in prison, the severest punishment so far in the scandal that broke in April with the publication of photos and video showing Americans humiliating and abusing naked Iraqis. Staff Sgt. Ivan Frederick’s attorney calls the sentence “excessive.”
* Gunmen ambush a bus carrying Iraqi women to their jobs at Baghdad International Airport, killing one woman and wounding 14.
* Three people who worked in Prime Minister Ayad Allawi’s office are killed and a fourth is wounded in an ambush in Baghdad.
* Several mortars fall about two blocks from Allawi’s convoy in Mosul, setting off a small blaze and plumes of smoke. No casualties are reported.
* A military hearing begins to determine whether an American soldier should face a court-martial for killing a severely wounded Iraqi to put him “out of his misery,” the U.S. command says.
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