Newsweek on the insurgents

Newsweek has an article detailing how the Iraqi insurgents are Saddam loyalists - Unmasking the Insurgents. They may still be the "resistance" for some. Accurate if by some chance they mean "resistance to democracy".

And on the connection with Al Qaeda -

After the United States crushed Afghanistan's Taliban regime and tore up Al Qaeda's infrastructure in the winter of 2001-02, would-be holy warriors started eying Iraq as a place where they could make a new stand. One of them was Zarqawi. Working with a group of Kurdish Islamic radicals known as Ansar Al-Islam, he established an underground railroad, bringing zealots to northern Iraq through Europe, Turkey and Syria. Other would-be holy warriors started finding their own way to Baghdad.

So Al Qaeda was setting up shop in Iraq prior to the invasion. Maybe the pre-invasion status quo was not much to have wanted to continue.