Al Qaeda: Bombing in Baghdad?

The Captain's Quarter's blog, and other parts of the pro-war blogosphere, are thrilled over this just-translated document on the CENTCOM site, supposedly a high-level Al Qaeda man lamenting their lack of success and small number of men and lack of serious munitions in Iraq. It is being read as proof that the U.S. is winning/has already won in Iraq, insurgency be damned.

They may or may not be right, as Mencken would say to angry correspondents. But a couple of points that came to mind are, 1) the insurgency in Iraq is made up of more than just Al Qaeda--Al Qaeda may indeed be a small percentage of it--and 2) that most of this document is written as if actually taking control of significant parts of Baghdad is the goal that AQ is failing at. Alas for the U.S., the insurgency doesn't have to ever actually capture Baghdad to any real degree to continue to make normal life impossible there or in other parts of Iraq. And if normal life remains impossible to a large degree, the U.S.'s goals have failed as much as have Al Qaeda's.