Ba'ath water

Perhaps Nancy Pelosi should have consulted with Mowaffak al Rubaie before taking her peace train to Damascus:

Al Rubaie, who is in the United States for official meetings in Washington and at the United Nations in New York, said Iraqi officials had presented a detailed intelligence dossier to the Syrian government of insurgent activity on Syrian territory. The information included exact locations of terrorist training camps in Syria and the names, addresses and photographs of insurgent leaders living in Syria.

The Syrians have taken no action on the camps, and on the matter of the insurgents, the response is, "He's not in Syria," according to al Rubaie.

Surely two of those "he's" al-Rubaie refers to are number one and number two, the most inconspicuous of all the insurgency kingpins. Consider this:

“a party that is over 60 years old that governed Iraq for approximately 40 years cannot be dissolved by former US governor and presidential envoy to Iraq, Paul Bremer’s, stroke of a pen, neither can the Baath party be dissolved by the debaathification law, a party that alone once ruled Iraq.

It remains to be seen whether the Baathists are still influencing the insurgency in any meaningful way or whether they just got the ball rolling then headed for the tall grass to regroup:

He added, “I have not met with Izzat al Douri, where is he? Where is he located? I know that he is still alive; some say he is in Syria, others say Yemen, but I know that he is still in Iraq and that their financial situation is good because they owned the state and the party. They have their [bank] accounts abroad… It all belongs to Izzat al Douri.”

Some would say this is no more than pride and bluster for a failed past; that the Baathists simply have no power to return. The fact a Shia-led government placed ex party leaders on the tippy top of their most-wanted list may not necessarily say anything--perhaps it was just to satisfy their political base out of a sense of revenge. Maybe it came from Tehran. But can we be sure?

For years the Baathists under "comrade" Saddam employed an affinity for barbarism similar in scope to al Qaeda and neither have displayed any problems killing in cold blood. It's not surprising such like-mindedness led to cooperation after the statue fell and this should not be forgotten. Yet another wild card in a redeployment scenario the Democrats won't mention.

Speaking of forgotten, wonder what became of Tariq Aziz?