Zarqawi Killed; Back Story Ignored

You can't miss the news -- the US military killed terrorist leader Abu Musab Zarqawi yesterday. But what you will probably not see in mainstream media is this: the Bush Administration consciously chose not to attack Zarqawi in 2002, long before the US invaded Iraq. (tip)

In 1998, President Clinton was criticized by Republican leadership for his attempt to kill Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan.

Then in June 2002, in the early days of our "war on terrorism," US intelligence officials learned "that Zarqawi and members of al-Qaida had set up a weapons lab at Kirma, in northern Iraq, producing deadly ricin and cyanide," according to an NBC report in March 2004. Not once -- but three times -- the White House ignored Pentagon plans calling for a strike against Zarqawi.

The Pentagon quickly drafted plans to attack the camp with cruise missiles and airstrikes and sent it to the White House, where, according to U.S. government sources, the plan was debated to death in the National Security Council...

Four months [October 2004] later, intelligence showed Zarqawi was planning to use ricin in terrorist attacks in Europe.

The Pentagon drew up a second strike plan, and the White House again killed it. By then the administration had set its course for war with Iraq....

In January 2003, the threat turned real. Police in London arrested six terror suspects and discovered a ricin lab connected to the camp in Iraq.

The Pentagon drew up still another attack plan, and for the third time, the National Security Council killed it.

Flash back to 2002. Where were US troops? Afghanistan, a place that Zarqawi had called home since the late 1990s. And why didn't we pursue Zarqawi in 2002? Politics: we were trying to drum up support for an attack against Saddam Hussein, not terrorist leaders.

For the geography-challenged, there is a wide expanse between northeastern Iraq and Afghanistan: it's called Iran.

On 25 October 2004, the Wall Street Journal (A3) confirmed the March MSNBC story:

The Pentagon drew up detailed plans in June 2002, giving the administration a series of options for a military strike on the camp Mr. Zarqawi was running then in remote northeastern Iraq, according to generals who were involved directly in planning the attack and several former White House staffers...

And then explains that the White House avoided the preemptive strike because the plan to invade Iraq took priority. Remember, this was the summer of 2002 -- when all options were on the table, according to public statements from the White House.

Another factor, though, was fear that a strike on the camp could stir up opposition while the administration was trying to build an international coalition to launch an invasion of Iraq. Lawrence Di Rita, the Pentagon's chief spokesman, said in an interview that the reasons for not striking included "the president's decision to engage the international community on Iraq." Mr. Di Rita said the camp was of interest only because it was believed to be producing chemical weapons. He also cited several potential logistical problems in planning a strike, such as getting enough ground troops into the area, and the camp's large size.

Note, too, that we invaded Iraq because we asserted that there was an imminent threat from weapons of mass destruction ... which have not been found. Zarqawi's chemical weapons were subsequently found in Britain and suspected in Spain.

Lisa Gordon-Hagerty, who was in the White House as the National Security Council's director for combatting terrorism at the time, said an NSC working group, led by the Defense Department, had been in charge of reviewing the plans to target the camp. She said the camp was "definitely a stronghold, and we knew that certain individuals were there including Zarqawi." Ms. Gordon-Hagerty said she wasn't part of the working group and never learned the reason why the camp wasn't hit. But she said that much later, when reports surfaced that Mr. Zarqawi was behind a series of bloody attacks in Iraq, she said "I remember my response," adding, "I said why didn't we get that ['son of a b-'] when we could."

Moreover, on 7 April 2004 (A17), the WSJ reported that Zarquwi had been sentenced to death in Jordon for the 2002 murder of a US Agency for International Development administrator. That report notes:

Beginning in the late 1990s, Mr. Zarqawi established training camps in Afghanistan that produced a new generation of holy warriors, according to German court documents. Mr. Zarqawi controlled many of the clandestine routes across the border between Iran and Afghanistan and still enjoys the loyalty and trust of his camp graduates, the German documents show.

The WSJ points out that Bush pledged to "relentlessly ... pursue and attack fleeing al Qaeda fighters regardless of where they went to hide."

But of course, not if it gets in our way of an even bigger preemptive strike.

This preemptive strike/assassination business is messy. What would have happened had the Administration givena green light to the first Pentagon recommendation to strike at Zarqawi? Would we have asked Hussein for approval? Would he have said no? Would that act alone have been sufficient to sway doubting Americans of the value of our embroilment in Iraq? Would any subsequent invasion to topple Hussein have proceeded more smoothly?

Of course, we'll never know the answers.

What we do know is this: Bush left Zarqawi alone in 2002. In so doing, the US helped create the alleged monster that it took public joy in killing (possibly along with his wife and son) yesterday.

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