Pollack: 'It's a really mixed picture' in Iraq
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CNN analyst Ken Pollack
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CNN's Deborah Feyerick on Army Reservists asked to sign a waiver returning them to combat early.
CNN's Jamie McIntyre on the tactics used by insurgents in the Samarra ambushes.
CNN's Christiane Amanpour on the current state of Iraqi police.
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WASHINGTON (CNN) -- In Iraq, the debate continues about the number of Iraqi casualties as a result of weekend ambushes. Tuesday also marked the 441st death of a U.S. servicemember in Iraq, when a soldier died after an explosive device hit his convoy.
Just returned from Iraq is CNN analyst Ken Pollack, director of research at the Brookings Institution's Saban Center for Middle East Policy and author of "The Threatening Storm: The Case for Invading Iraq." Pollack spoke with CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer about the situation in Iraq.
POLLACK: I think it's a really mixed picture over there, and it's a very complicated picture.
There's a lot of good going on in Iraq. Most of the Iraqis I was able to speak to wanted the reconstruction to succeed. They didn't necessarily want Americans in their country, but they were all terrified that the United States would leave prematurely in a situation that they wouldn't have a stable political or economic situation and ... things would devolve very quickly into civil war. That was their greatest fear.
There's a lot of positive going on there. If the United States were to make a full effort and maybe change a few things that we're doing, there is every reason to believe that Iraq could, over time, develop into the kind of stable society that everyone hopes it could be.
On the other hand, there's also a lot of bad going on in Iraq, and there's some things that the U.S. is doing that are not helping matters. And there are simply other issues that the U.S. has just not gotten its arms around. And unless those things are corrected, they could take Iraq in a very negative direction.
In particular, if the U.S. isn't willing to stick it out in Iraq, I think you could see Iraq dissolve into civil war very quickly.
BLITZER: We know you went to Baghdad. But where else in the country did you get to?
POLLACK: I went up to Balad Southeast, which is a major air base north of Baghdad. Right now it is the home of part of the 4th Infantry Division, and it's also the major logistical hub for all of the U.S. forces inside of Iraq.
It's an enormous base, 18,000 soldiers up there. And I was with the soldiers. I was with the U.S. military civil affairs personnel trying to find out what they were doing, what they were up against, the counterinsurgency operations, and also what we were trying to do with the average Iraqis out in the countryside.
BLITZER: Here's an e-mail from Tim in Michigan, Ken: "I believe that [deposed Iraqi President] Saddam [Hussein] himself is orchestrating these attacks against U.S. troops. He was never captured of killed and this is his futile attempt to regain leadership of Iraq."
Is Tim right?
POLLACK: Well, certainly, I think that that is part of what's going on. Saddam is out there, and as best U.S. intelligence can tell, he is at least partially responsible for these attacks. He does seem to be instigating a number of them.
What's unclear is just how many of them can be tied directly back to Saddam Hussein. There are a number of different people inside of Iraq who don't like the U.S. there and have taken up arms against us.
Some of the people out there just seem to be Sunni tribesmen who don't like what the U.S. is doing in terms of restructuring Iraqi society and excluding them from what they believe should be a privileged position in the Iraqi government.
Others are Sunni and Shiite fundamentalists. Still others do seem to be al Qaeda personnel.
So there's a big problem out there with these insurgents. And while getting Saddam Hussein would be a big shot in the arm, I don't think that it will solve the problem by itself.
BLITZER: There was a report that was out earlier today, that's now been denied by the U.S. military, that the No. 6 most-wanted man in Iraq, Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, was captured or killed. The U.S. military [is now] saying that report is false.
He [would be] a prize capture, though ... He's someone very important, going back to the [Persian] Gulf War. A lot of our viewers will remember Izzat Ibrahim as someone who is the ruthless side of Saddam Hussein, at least in the public figure, as opposed to say, [former Deputy Prime Minister] Tariq Aziz, who was more public-relations oriented.
POLLACK: That's exactly right. Izzat Ibrahim was one of Saddam Hussein's chief thugs. He is a longtime Baath Party [agent]. He kind of grew up with Saddam Hussein, grew up in the Baath Party with him. He was one of the people who Saddam always turned to when he had a particularly nasty, bloody job that he needed to get done.
Izzat Ibrahim, [former Vice President] Taha Yassin Ramadan, ... [Saddam's] son Qusay, these were the hammers Saddam used to keep control over Iraq.
And as best [as] U.S. intelligence can tell, Izzat Ibrahim is now one of the lieutenants that Saddam is using to transmit orders down to the actual personnel who are conducting attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq.
BLITZER: We have another e-mail, from Amaury in California: "What happened in Samarra is an old tactic. A bunch of militants ambushed the U.S. forces, knowing that they themselves and civilians were going to die. They also knew the media would report these deaths and hoped the Iraqi population would further turn against the U.S. because of it."
I've heard this kind of analysis over the past 24, 48 hours, an old sort of guerilla warfare kind of strategy. Do you buy it?
POLLACK: Sure. Look, there's no question that that is what's going on here.
What's new and important about the ambush in Samarra, though, is the willingness of the Iraqis who sprung the ambush to actually stand and fight and die against heavily armed Americans.
One of the things that was so striking, one of the things that I heard consistently from U.S. military personnel in Iraq when I was over there, was that they were really struck by the fact that the Iraqis didn't have their hearts in the attacks. The attacks would be a roadside bomb or, if it was an ambush, they'd blow off a few rounds and then they'd beat feet. They would run away as fast as they could. Oftentimes they would just launch a few mortars and before the U.S. could ever find them, they would leave. And as a result they weren't doing a lot of damage.
But what's important about what happened at Samarra, is that for the first time, most important time, the Iraqis were willing to stand and fight and die. And if that's the trend, if that's what happens in the future, then we're going to have a very different insurgency on our hands that could be much more dangerous than what we've seen so far.
