Zarqawi in the crosshairs

May 1, 2006

Guest Post by Michael J.W. Stickings

Kevin Drum has posted on the NBC story about the Pentagon’s plans, just months after 9/11, “to hit the camp of Abu Musab Zarqawi” in northern Iraq. According to the story, Bush “refused to authorize a military strike”.

The story, from star correspondent Jim Miklaszewski, “was based on anonymous sources” and, predictably, the White House (and most everyone else) ignored it. But now Four Corners, an Australian news program, has confirmed the story with a high-profile source: Michael Scheuer, “former head of the CIA’s Osama bin Laden unit”. Here’s Kevin’s response:

So why wasn’t Bush willing to hit Zarqawi, a known al-Qaeda terrorist in a known location? Scheuer says he was told it was because Bush was afraid of annoying the French — a theory that seems a bit of a stretch, non? Others believe it was because Zarqawi was politically convenient: having him alive allowed Bush to pretend that Saddam was “harboring terrorists,” thus providing useful ammunition for the war.

Whichever it is, we now have a credible source telling us on the record that the Zarqawi story is true. We could have gotten him, but we chose not to. Perhaps someone will start off Tony Snow’s White House career on the right foot by asking him about it on Monday.

Perhaps. But perhaps not. The press ought to do its job, but I’m sure Snow et al. already have the spun version ready to go. Any guesses what excuse the White House will come up with on this one?

Either way, it looks like yet another failure by this failure of a president. How many are we up to now? I lost count a while back.

(For more, check out Maha at The Mahablog.)

http://online.wsj.com/article_print/SB109866031609354178.html

This Wall Street Journal article from 2004 seems to confirm the story, as well.

“Administration officials say the attack was set aside for a variety of reasons, including uncertain intelligence reports on Mr. Zarqawi’s whereabouts and the difficulties of hitting him within a large complex.”

Hmm, does this not sound like the reasons for the Clinton administration not hitting bin Laden when it might have had the chance, which right-wingers at the time scorned as cowardice and indecisiveness?

“The story of the debate over his camp shows how difficult the policy can be to carry out; Mr. Zarqawi’s subsequent resurgence highlights that while pre-emptive strikes entail considerable risks, the risk of not making them can be significant too, a factor that may weigh in future decisions on when to attack terrorist leaders.”

Does this explain why the administration decided to try and take out Ayman al-Zawahiri? Were they trying to “make up” for their earlier failure to at least try and get Zarqawi?

  • “We weren’t at war with the sovereign nation of Iraq (yet), and an errant missile strike might have been construed as an offensive military act against Iran—also a sovereign nation.”

    Hey…you did ask: “Any guesses what excuse the White House will come up with on this one?” They seem to be sooooooooooo into their “promotion of diplomacy” these days….

  • Sounds kinda like a Tora-Bora to me. You know, “dead or alive” and all that. Ooops.

  • “Others believe it was because Zarqawi was politically convenient: having him alive allowed Bush to pretend that Saddam was “harboring terrorists,” thus providing useful ammunition for the war.” – Kevin Drum

    This is what I buy. We could have gone after an Al Qaeda affiliated terrorist and probably not gotten more than a mild complaint from Saddam. But no, we had to have another excuse for invading.

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