"They keep their foot soldiers drugged," says one.
"Most are from other Middle Eastern countries, coming over the borders to fight us here," says another.
"Once," interjects a third, "a bus drove up into the middle of one town, and over the loudspeaker, a man asked who wanted to give himself to Allah. And right there 20 men jumped on board."
"They hate us," a final soldier adds, "and they hate freedom." Zhou Dynasty strategist Sun Tzu's sagest advice, "know your enemy," has never been easy to follow. But some Iraq experts caution that, in this conflict, soldiers and civilians alike may have forgotten it altogether. What substitutes, even among top political and military leaders, is often well-intentioned rumor and speculation - and, sometimes, poorly developed racial and religious composites.
But the insurgency is significantly more diverse than described by many troops. Its warriors' varied motives are much less simplistic than defined by political leaders.
So who is the enemy?
A 13-year-old Sunni boy in Abu Ghraib prison for murder, told by his extremist uncle that the cost of manhood was an American soldier's life.
A 20-year-old Shiite man in Najaf, still pining for retribution in the killing of more than 200 of his fellow militiamen in a battle with American forces last year.
An out-of-work carpenter, engineer or teacher. A former Baathist Army officer, cut off from his pension and not allowed to serve his new nation. The relatives of a Shiite family mistakenly killed by a U.S. soldier who feared their vehicle carried explosives.
"There is not one face, one agenda and one ideology," says Judith Yaphe, a former Iraq analyst with the CIA and a senior fellow at the National Defense University. "What you have is multiple insurgencies."
But Yaphe said there is no way to accurately estimate the number of insurgents in Iraq.
And multiple motives: Political power, resistance to the occupation, a need for money.
Indeed, the enemy described by most - religious extremists from foreign nations, including elements of al-Qaida - makes up only a small percentage of the fighters in Iraq, Yaphe says.
"Ninety percent of this is an Iraqi event," she says.
Multiple insurgencies: At a sparse Marine Corps base south of Lake Habbaniyah, in the volatile Al Anbar Province, a cluster of military truck drivers huddles around a red-freckled staff sergeant giving instructions for the upcoming evening's mission.
He takes roll, ticks through the latest intelligence report - another set of roadside bombs has been discovered on the night's route - and looks down at his clipboard to see what is left to be covered.
"OK, OK," he says, "What's next? Enemy description - well, you know, they look like every other Middle Eastern guy out here."
"Except they shoot at you," shouts a stout, young specialist standing in the back of the group.
The brusque reply draws a hearty laugh from the muster of drivers, but also a few anxious expressions. Truth is it's impossible for soldiers to know whether those they pass on the roads are friend or foe.
In nearby Ramadi, Sunni stronghold and center of much insurgent action, soldiers make something of a game out of pegging the men who stand on the roadside, staring coldly at passing U.S. convoys.
"That guy's Moojh, right there," one Army officer says, as he catches the scowl of a young man leaning, cross-armed, in the doorway of a rundown cinder-block home.
The officer's guess - that the teenager was a trained Islamic warrior, known as mujahedeen - will remain unproven. The armored Humvee rumbles past without further ado. In these parts, it is unwise to halt a convoy for anything less than battle.
Senate Intelligence Committee member Orrin Hatch, a Utah Republican, says he believes much of the insurgency is made up of Islamic fundamentalists, like those thought to be staring down American convoys in Ramadi. Many, he says, want to prevent democracy from taking root in Iraq and come from a variety of nations, with anti-Zionists leading the way.
"Hatred toward Israel is the driving force," he says.
"There are other groups as well," he says. "I don't want to oversimplify it because there were many groups that came together."
The alignment of groups against the United States, however, is in dispute. Indeed, in Iraq, having a mutual enemy in the United States does not necessarily make allies of groups that have warred for centuries.
More than a year has passed since the last major uprising in the holy Shiite city of Najaf - with religious and militia leaders calling for a cessation of attacks against American forces in favor of a political solution. But not all of those who participated are ready to give up the struggle.
The roads near Najaf are routinely clear of hidden explosives and suicide car bombers, but small arms fire continues to be a hazard. That doesn't mean, however, those responsible for the gunfire are aligned, even peripherally, with Sunni extremists, like bin Laden and Abu Musab Zarqawi, more commonly associated with the insurgency.
"I've never met a single person who supports bin Laden or Zarqawi," says Will Van Wagenen, a Salt Lake City native and member of the nonprofit Christian Peacemaker Teams, who recently met with members of the al-Mahdi militia at Najaf's Wadi al-Salem cemetery, where they had clashed with U.S. troops for three weeks in August 2004.
"But," Van Wagenen says, "a lot of people support continued attacks against the Americans."
A secret poll commissioned by the British government and conducted by an Iraqi research team confirmed that assessment, according to London's Sunday Telegraph. The newspaper reported last month that nearly half of Iraqis believe attacks against occupation forces are justified.
'You have a lot of freedom': It has been several days since the bombing, but the soldiers who have gathered in a dusty tent on this sweltering Iraqi afternoon are still searching for answers. To the front of the congregation, past an empty set of combat boots and inverted rifle, walks a stern-faced colonel.
Kevin Jones, he says, did not die in vain. He was killed fighting for freedom, in a foreign land that was not his own.
In death, the 21-year-old specialist joined more than 80 other soldiers slain in the 30 days leading up to the Oct. 15 constitutional referendum. Attacks on coalition forces appear to increase during such times, Defense Department officials note, saying this indicates the insurgents are aiming to thwart freedom and democracy.
Yaphe, the former CIA analyst, says it does seem clear that most insurgent groups want to see the current Iraqi government fail. But she says it would be a mistake to assume any of those groups are of one mind on what they'd like to see in the aftermath.
And she believes the oft-stated notion that insurgents are the enemies of freedom around the world is incorrect.
"That's one of George Bush's favorites, but in my heart of hearts, I really don't think they care if we live in a democracy or we have freedom or that we live on the moon," Yaphe says. "They don't like what we do. We represent incarnate evil to many. Some are glad Saddam is gone and don't like us. Others regret Saddam is gone and don't like us."
Having come to believe such descriptions, Capt. Dan Kwok, an Army physician who treated inmates at the military prison in Abu Ghraib, was taken back by the claims of one highly educated prisoner he came to know.
The inmate, Kwok says, was a medical doctor, like himself, who worked for Zarqawi's network of fundamentalist guerrilla fighters.
"I asked him, 'Where would you like to live, if you could live anywhere in the world?' " recalls Kwok, a graduate of Brigham Young University. "And he told me, 'In the United States, because you have a lot of freedom there.' "
Van Wagenen heard similar themes among those he came to know in Iraq, including resistance supporters of both Shiite and Sunni persuasion.
One Shiite Kurd with whom Van Wagener worked was most upset by the reasoning, often stated by Bush in recent speeches - and commonly repeated by soldiers in Iraq - that the war was being fought abroad "before they attack us at home."
"He told me, 'When you say that, you are saying that American lives are more important than Iraqi lives. We had nothing to do with Sept. 11, but you are making Iraq a magnet for terrorists,' " Van Wagenen recalls.
Rather than wanting to stop the march of freedom, Iraqis desire to accept it on their own terms, Van Wagenen said.
And for some, the fight against American-led occupation forces is part of that struggle.
'How can we know?': A bone-chilling wind has picked up at Camp Striker in Baghdad. Pvt. Patrice Gittens is slouched on a bench, shivering in her Army warm-ups as she watches other soldiers play basketball under a set of makeshift spotlights.
Gittens fights the urge to retreat to her tent, worried that she'll wake up tomorrow to the sound of mortar explosions, as is routine these days.
"If those mortars didn't go off in the morning, every morning, I'd be late for work," she says.
Who is responsible for the near daily bombings?
"I don't know," she says. "I suppose insurgents. Trying to get rid of us, I guess. I guess they hate us because we done blown up half their country."
Standing nearby, Spc. William Clark playfully tugs at Gitten's leg to lighten the mood, but he himself doesn't stay jovial for long.
"You know, the president and all these people say it's al-Qaida, but no one knows who al-Qaida is," says Clark, a Virginia farm boy who just began his second tour in Iraq.
The first time around, with Saddam Hussein still on the lam and with the hunt still on for the dictator's alleged stash of weapons of mass destruction, Clark figured he knew who the enemy was.
This time around, after leaving an infant daughter back home, he's no longer so certain.
"How can we know who is our enemy," he says, "when we don't even know why we're here?"
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Reporter Thomas Burr contributed from Washington, D.C.
Reporter Matthew D. LaPlante and photographer Rick Egan recently returned from assignment in Iraq. They may be reached at iraq@sltrib.com.
