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Insurgency has lost its clout, U.S. envoy says

July 25, 2008 at 12:32AM

"You talk to [Iraqis] and they just say, 'Never again. We almost destroyed ourselves.' There is almost a kind of embarrassment over [the insurgency]: 'How could we Iraqis do that?'

"Under current circumstances, [the insurgency] is not a threat and arguably not even much of a challenge any more. There isn't a whole lot left of that insurgency, at least certainly in an active sense. By and large, what's left ... is just trying to hang on.

"I do worry a bit sometimes that some in the [Iraqi] government say, 'We've won this. It's over. Now we go on to other things.' Well, you've got to go on to other things, but watch your back.

"One of the encouraging factors is that as violent and as vicious as that sectarian fighting was, it's kind of an anomaly here.

"Yes, there are sectarian differences and Saddam's government really went after the non-Sunni populations, both Kurds and Shiites, but that broadly is seen as Saddam [Hussein], not the will of the Sunni people.

"[Iraqi politics] is going to be an ongoing thrash, but we've been through this before. It's just a fact of Iraqi politics: -- it's all high wire."

ASSOCIATED PRESS

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