"HarryKrause" wrote in message
...
thunder wrote:
On Mon, 25 Jul 2005 14:35:52 +0000, Doug Kanter wrote:


Do me a favor, OK? If I tell you I heard an American military official
on
the radio, accept the fact that I heard it. Usually, I'm either in the
car
or working in the kitchen when I listen to the news and although I love
you dearly, I am not going to take notes just for you. Incidentally,
these
people were THERE in Iraq, not desk jockies sitting in the Pentagon.

Kind of depends on your definition of terms. While *all* reports I have
read, state that foreign militants are less than 10% of the insurgents,
it
seems there are reports that those same militants make up 90% of the
suicide bombers. One caveat, while that 90% number is all over the
internet, it can be generally traced to one article written by Patrick
Quinn and Katherine Shrader and attributed to "one defense official".
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlates...109609,00.html


I wonder how these "nationality" decisions are being made. The Middle East
has long been an area where use of false documents is common practice. And
how many of the killed insurgents are carrying papers? Whose papers are
they carrying? Who is making the determination? And with what training and
on what basis?

Which is precisely why it's more likely that foreigners make up the majority
of "unidentifiable" corpses. It shouldn't be difficult for Iraqis to
identify fellow Iraqis (friends, family members, neighbors, etc).