Word: qaeda
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Iraq. That may have been true in the past, as there was no progress. This time, however, nearly all the Senators, including most Democrats, opened their comments by praising the general and the ambassador for their fine work-noting the reduced casualty rates and the success against al-Qaeda. The debate had finally moved on to more fertile turf: If things were going so well, why were Crocker and Petraeus so reluctant to come home...
...Senator who mined this turf most profitably was ... Barack Obama (a surprise, since you never expect a presidential peacock to be succinct or acute enough in these bloviathons). Obama hit Petraeus and Crocker with an artful series of questions about the two main threats: Sunni terrorists like al-Qaeda in Iraq, and Iran. He noted that al-Qaeda had been rejected by the Iraqi Sunnis and chased to the northern city of Mosul. If U.S. and Iraqi troops succeeded there, what was next? He proposed: "Our goal is not to hunt down and eliminate every single trace of al-Qaeda...
...last month. "Its ability to fight wars consisting of head-on battles using tanks and mechanized infantry is in danger of atrophy." Gentile argues that it was the cease-fire declared last year by Sadr as well as the U.S. military's alliance with former Sunni militants against al-Qaeda that were more important than the surge in turning the tide in Iraq...
Going back to al-Dora was out of the question: it would be six months before al-Qaeda in Iraq would be driven from the neighborhood. But in nearby Saydiyah, Hammadi found a family heading in the opposite direction--to Syria--and offered to live in their house as an unpaid caretaker. He borrowed some money to buy a dilapidated minibus. Ferrying kids to and from school brought him a meager $10 a day, but it was better than living off handouts from cousins in Damascus. His wife Shada, 30, supplemented the family income by baking bread and selling...
...plans promise much and deliver little. But by the end of the year, Hammadi's optimism was looking prescient. Sunni insurgents I had known for years--men who had sworn blood oaths to fight the "occupier" until their dying breath--were joining forces with the Americans to fight al-Qaeda in Iraq. The vehemently anti-American Shi'ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr had agreed to a cease-fire with the U.S. military, and his ill-disciplined militia, the Mahdi Army, seemed to be keeping its end of the bargain...