What a Difference a Day Makes

Posted on January 23, 2004

From yesterday’s USA Today — “U.S. commander: Backbone of Iraqi insurgency broken“:

“The former regime elements we’ve been combating have been brought to their knees,” Maj. Gen. Raymond Odierno, commander of the Army’s 4th Infantry Division, told reporters at the Pentagon in a satellite video news conference from his headquarters in the city of Tikrit…
“Capturing Saddam was a major operational and psychological defeat for the enemy,” he said. “But a more important result of his capture is the increase in accurate information brought forward by Iraqis allowing us to conduct numerous, precise raids to kill or capture” those who are financing and producing homemade explosives used to kill and injure American troops.

From today’s CNN.com — “U.S. sees al Qaeda’s stamp in attacks“:

Iraqi insurgents appear to be using al Qaeda-like fighting tactics, and U.S. officials suspect the terror group provides financial support to anti-coalition fighters, the head of U.S. ground forces in Iraq said.
Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez would not provide hard evidence that rebel forces in Iraq were directly linked to Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda terrorist network.
But he said, “I think it’s probably not appropriate for me to talk about al Qaeda in the sense of a concrete, proven presence,” Sanchez said. “What I’ll tell you though is that we’re seeing al Qaeda-like tactics. We believe that there’s training that’s been conducted for some of the terrorists.”…
In a 24-hour period, starting Wednesday, insurgents killed two U.S. soldiers, three Iraqi police officers and four civilians in the Sunni Triangle, Iraq’s most volatile region.

So, are they broken, disorganized, and defeated? Or are they dangerous, trained, and funded? Which is it?