"If you think that the majority of the money is coming from outside the country to fund the insurgency, you’d be wrong. I think a majority is being done right here . . . under the disguise of legitimate storefront operations." LTC Eric Welsh in Mosul to the LATimes.
Last month, I got word from an outgoing US commander in northern Iraq (guarding pipelines and dealing with black market activities) that heavily marked-up and dog eared copies of
Brave New War were making the circuit with the command staff. A common refrain: "I wish I had read this earlier." One result is that it has helped commanders focus on the criminal/guerrilla nexus (see the 2004 brief "
Guerrilla Entrepreneurs" for more) that is fueling the Iraqi insurgency (rather than spinning wheels with tired COIN dogma). Here's an example (
LATimes):
Recent U.S. and Iraqi raids targeting financiers of insurgents in the northern city of Mosul have uncovered a criminal network involving kickbacks, overbilling and illegal sales, officials say, that has pumped millions into Sunni insurgent groups such as Al Qaeda in Iraq. In Mosul alone, illegal real estate deals, in which government property is sold to unsuspecting buyers, have generated $40 million to $60 million for the insurgency in the last couple of years, a source told U.S. forces. Black-market sales of gasoline and propane in Nineveh province, of which Mosul is the capital, are believed to generate an additional $1 million a month.