#2

I thought it was just me. The other day, the White House claimed to have killed the“second-most-wanted Al Qaeda leader in Iraq” for what seemed to me about the tenth time.

Turns out, I'm not so crazy:

...veteran counterterrorism analyst Evan Kohlmann said today there are ample reasons to question whether Abu Azzam was really the No. 2 figure in the Iraqi insurgency. He noted that U.S. officials have made similar claims about a string of purportedly high-ranking terrorist operatives who had been captured or killed in the past, even though these alleged successes made no discernible dent in the intensity of the insurgency.

“If I had a nickel for every No. 2 and No. 3 they’ve arrested or killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, I’d be a millionaire,” says Kohlmann, a New York-based analyst who tracks the Iraq insurgency and who first expressed skepticism about the Azzam claims in a posting on The Counterterrorism Blog (counterterror.typepad.com). While agreeing that Azzam—also known as Abdullah
Najim Abdullah Mohamed al-Jawari—may have been an important figure, “this guy
was not the deputy commander of Al Qaeda,” says Kohlmann.

Of course, Al Qaeda wouldn't be in Iraq at all had we not totally destabilized the country by invading it and then having no plan for the aftermath.

As for the abundance of #2 guys, I will say this in the administration’s defense: if indeed the current Mr. 2 is killed or captured it only makes sense everyone else under him moves up. Which is precisely the problem with this whole idiotic "flypaper" strategy (which is really a rational and not a strategy anyway). When you kill a insurgent or "terrorist" there is always going to be one or more to replace him. There is not some finite number of "terrorists" that just need to be found and disposed of. Our very presence there guarantees an endless and ongoing supply. So doing-in the latest #2 accomplishes nothing but give the illusion of some sort of "progress" in a never ending war of our own choosing.