U.S. FORCES IN IRAQ trying to lock down security in Iraq’s “Sunni Triangle” are battling enemies beyond disgruntled Baathist and unemployed Fedayeen. The triangle–the region around Baghdad and west to Ramadhi, then north to Saddam Hussein’s ancestral hometown of Tikrit (and sometimes as far north as Mosul)–has become a hotbed for foreign fighters eager to spill American blood. President Bush stated in a September 7 speech to the nation that Iraq has become the central front in the war on terrorism and that terrorists aligned with Osama bin Laden and others like al Qaeda have crossed Iraq’s borders.

Paul Bremer, the chief of the Coalition Provisional Authority that oversees reconstruction in Iraq, buttressed Bush’s claims, saying at a September 26 Pentagon briefing that “we do have almost 300 foreign–non-Iraqi detainees–third-country nationals in detention now, some of whom are terrorists, some of whom maybe just came as mercenaries.”