The insurgents interviewed don't think Bush's plan will work:
Iraqi insurgents last night threatened to send President Bush’s 22,000 new troops home in body bags as details emerged of the new Baghdad crackdown at the core of his “surge” strategy.The Shia-led Government of Nouri al-Maliki reacted positively, but there is widespread scepticism as to whether it will confront Shia militias within its own hardline parties. On the streets there are near-universal predictions — from Sunnis and Shias alike — that the plan will join previous failed initiatives.
The most strident reaction came from hostile insurgents in Salahaddin and other Sunni Triangle towns north of Baghdad. The Bush-Maliki plan to deploy tens of thousands of troops in the satellite towns is widely regarded by Sunni residents as evidence of US complicity with their Shia enemies.
“Twenty thousand soldiers will never be able to achieve what 140,000 have failed to achieve so far, and the fate of the new soldiers will not be any better than for those who were here before them,” said Abu Moath, an insurgent with the Islamic and Nationalist Front for the Liberation of Iraq. “They came here to kill innocent Iraqis so they should be all killed the same way.”
Ahmed al-Hassani, of the hardline Ansar al-Sunna, said: “We will keep going in our war that does not accept any midway solutions. Either they pull out of our country or the war will continue until we achieve victory.”
It doesn't sound like they are ready for General Petraeus' economic incentives approach to war.
And here is an interesting side note about the Iranian "consulate" that our troops raided:
US troops arrested six Iranians at an Iranian government office in the Kurdish city of Irbil in northern Iraq yesterday, prompting an angry reaction from Tehran, which accused Washington of trying to “create tension” with Iraq’s neighbours.The raid — during which witnesses said troops used stun grenades and hauled down an Iranian flag — came as President Bush accused Iran and Syria of helping insurgents and promised to “interrupt” the flow of money and weapons.
US officials denied that the building was a consulate, as claimed by Iran. Muhammad Ali Hosseini, the Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman, initially said it was a “diplomatic mission” but later downgraded it to an “office of relations”.
