Who Are the Insurgents and What Do They Want?

On May 1, 2003, under a colorful banner reading "Mission Accomplished," President George W. Bush declared that major combat operations in Iraq had ended. The first year in Iraq - called "the lost year" by a PBS Frontline documentary - saw a number of successes and reasons for hope. Iraqi children caught candy tossed by US soldiers from Humvees, ordinary citizens celebrated their freedom in the streets, and icon symbols of Saddam Hussein's government were defaced across the country. But by the close of that year, something had begun to shift dramatically.

About seven months after the invasion, in October 2003, the terms "insurgent" and "insurgency" began appearing with significant regularity on CNN and in other mainstream media outlets. The usage of these names grew alarmingly and the tactics employed by those who held them became increasingly more offensive and abhorrent. Sniper and rocket attacks on convoys gave way to roadside bombs and videotaped beheadings of civilian contractors.

Two years after Bush's announcement of the end of combat operations, Vice President Dick Cheney commented that this second horrific phase was coming to a close. "I think they're in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency." That, too, proved to be a premature assumption.

So much day-in-day-out coverage of endless reports of the violent, indiscriminate deaths of Americans and Iraqis alike has led to what has been described as "outrage fatigue." Yet after all this reporting of the so-called insurgency, many Americans still have a few simple, basic questions about the whole ordeal.

Who are the insurgents and what do they want? Are the Americans or the new Iraqi government able to give them what they want? And if so, would giving them what they want - even if it means conceding some sort of defeat - be worse than the continued spilling of blood?

The name of a fighter