Iraq's national security adviser said Thursday a "huge treasure" of documents and computer records was seized after the raid on al Qaeda chief Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's hideout, giving the Iraqi government the upper hand in its fight against the network in Iraq.
According to the AP, National Security Adviser Mouwafak al-Rubaie added he believed the security situation in the country would improve enough to allow a large number of U.S.-led forces to withdraw from Iraq by the end of this year.
Al-Rubaie said a laptop, flashdrive and other documents were found in the debris after the airstrike that killed the al Zarqawi last week outside Baqouba. He called it a "huge treasure ... a huge amount of information."
When asked how he could be sure the information was authentic, al-Rubaie said "there is nothing more authentic than finding a thumbdrive in his pocket."
"We believe that this is the beginning of the end of al-Qaida in Iraq," al-Rubaie said. "Now we have the upper hand," he said at a news conference in Baghdad. "We feel that we know their locations, the names of their leaders, their whereabouts, their movements, through the documents we found during the last few days."
