Briefing on Operations in Northwest Iraq

DoD News reports Colonel Brown appears via teleconference from Mosul, Iraq.... One of the great pieces of information we got recently is 80 percent of the al Qaeda network in the north has been devastated.

It is hard to keep an insurection going when you lose 80% of your network.

And those are not our figures, those came from the last six leaders in Mosul, al Qaeda leaders that we captured; they informed us of that. We also had a letter that was captured from Abu Zaid (sp) going to Zarqawi. We recently killed Zaid (sp) and we had that letter, and it also talked about the desperate situation for the al Qaeda and the insurgents in Mosul and in the north. And then also, sources we have inside the al Qaeda network up here have also informed us of that. So we're very proud. We have a situation where the Iraq army is being rebuilt. The Iraqi police that ran away in November are standing and fighting. In fact, they recently found one of the largest caches certainly in the north, and maybe all of Iraq. And they're doing a very good job.... Right now, 80 percent of the folks on the street in Mosul and Nineveh province in the north here say that they will vote. And very interesting -- these are -- many of the folks I talked to are Sunnis who are very upset that they were lied to last election, told not to vote, and they were very excited to vote this election.

And if they are upset at the people that told them not to vote the last time, they are not likely to pay too much attention if they now tell them to vote against it.

And I think the biggest challenge is going to be getting enough ballots to the polling sites because so many people want to vote up here.... we have about 40 sources in each battalion, and these sources are a real combination. Our best source -- the terrorists killed his relatives, and he doesn't want anything but sheer revenge against these cowardly terrorists that would perform these acts.

I am not surprised these would be good sources. I have always been amazed at the stupidity of the insurgents and the foreign fighters targeting Iraqis, and then being surprised when some of them turn them in.

So we have a number of sources that provide information. We work very hard to develop these sources.