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KR Washington Bureau | 10/30/2003 | U.S. warned of more suicide attacks in Iraq:
"Rumors are swirling around Baghdad that foreign terrorists are likely to initiate another massive wave of suicide bombings in the Iraqi capital within days and weeks as the Muslim holy month of Ramadan continues.

A shadowy Iraqi nationalist resistance group known as 'Mohammed's Army' used an intermediary to pass on word that a foreign Islamic terrorist cell based in the western Iraqi town of Ramadi plans to carry out bombings on Saturday and Nov. 13, striking Baghdad police stations and other targets associated with the U.S.-led coalition.

'They will not care about bombing mosques, primary schools, civilians, women and children,' said the intermediary, who said he was quoting a cell leader who claimed to have knowledge of the plan. 'They said this will be a gift for the coalition.'"

The article says that this may be just a rumor, may be false, may be true. Let's hope for the sake of everybody in Iraq, American and Iraqi, that it's false.

But it's another indication of what a complete botch we're making of things there that our folks in Baghdad apparently have no idea whether it's true or not.

But a senior coalition official, who also asked not to be named, acknowledged Thursday that intelligence on the Iraqi resistance remains poor.

"We don't have enough humint (human intelligence or informants) to really know," the official said.

That lack of informants is a major handicap for U.S. intelligence, something unlikely to be helped by a range of new technology being sent to Iraq to help track anti-coalition groups.

Great. Just great. Well, it goes right along with the stuff I'm hearing now about Saddam being personally involved in the attacks. What does it say about our position in Iraq if he can operate that freely and we haven't been able to find him in six months? Jeebus. And people think the Republicans can be trusted with national security? I wouldn't trust this bunch to keep an eye on my lunch while I got a napkin.