June 2002: Avoiding attacking suspected terrorist mastermind

[teach1st]

Has this March 2004 article ever been countered by the Bush administration or is it factual? According to the article, in 2002 Zarqawi had apparently set up a weapons lab in a portion of Iraq not controlled by Hussein - it was under coalition control. The Pentagon drew up three attack plans, but the NSC nixed them because "the administration feared destroying the terrorist camp in Iraq could undercut its case for war against Saddam."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4431601

By Jim Miklaszewski
Correspondent
NBC News
Updated: 7:14 p.m. ET March 2, 2004

With Tuesday’s attacks, Abu Musab Zarqawi, a Jordanian militant with ties to al-Qaida, is now blamed for more than 700 terrorist killings in Iraq.

But NBC News has learned that long before the war the Bush administration had several chances to wipe out his terrorist operation and perhaps kill Zarqawi himself — but never pulled the trigger.

In June 2002, U.S. officials say intelligence had revealed that Zarqawi and members of al-Qaida had set up a weapons lab at Kirma, in northern Iraq, producing deadly ricin and cyanide.

...

Military officials insist their case for attacking Zarqawi’s operation was airtight, but the administration feared destroying the terrorist camp in Iraq could undercut its case for war against Saddam.

More

(On edit: Added link)

[Oversea Visitor]

1. Aaaaah

Where is all the ricin and cyanide now :scared:

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

2. No, it hasn't.

This article has been conveniently ignored by everyone in the government, as well as everyone in the mainstream media, including MSNBC itself save this one article. I copied this one to my PC when I saw that it wasn't getting any attention. It's priceless. :)

[teach1st]

3. Then I wonder why...

...the media and the Dems aren't holding this up as another and a great example of Bush's failure to protect us from terrorists as well as the stupidity of his Iraq adventures.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

5. Because it complicates the simple narrative...

...of Saddam = bad. The US media hates facts that contradict its narrative.

[Oversea Visitor]

4. This deserve some pubilicity hey

Crazy Chimp must have big hard on for Saddam.
Either that all this Al QaaQaa is nonsense.
This is poison gas stuff hey where the hell is it?

[Minstrel Boy]

6. A couple of other good ones from MSNBC:

Iraq militants claim al-Zarqawi is dead
Al Qaida-linked extremist suspected of planning attacks

The Associated Press
Updated: 6:31 a.m. ET March 4, 2004
BAGHDAD, Iraq - A Jordanian extremist suspected of bloody suicide attacks in Iraq was killed some time ago in U.S. bombing and a letter outlining plans for fomenting sectarian war is a forgery, a statement allegedly from an insurgent group west of the capital said.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4446084 /

Evidence tying an Al Qaeda-linked terrorist to the latest Iraqi
bombings is murkier than U.S. officials are letting on
WEB EXCLUSIVE
By Rod Nordland
Newsweek
March 07, 2004

March 6 - The stark fact is that we don't even know for sure how many
legs Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi has, let alone whether the Jordanian
terrorist, purportedly tied to al Qaeda, is really behind the latest
outrages in Iraq....

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/4466324

[Minstrel Boy]

7. The convenience of Zarqawi's miraculous leg

From Molly Ivins, April 13, 2004:

Note the interesting little factoids that are being dribbled out as everyone's attention is riveted on the larger slippage in Iraq. Apparently in the spirit of the British civil servant who put out a memo on Sept. 11 advising all departments that today would be a good day to unload any bad news lying around, we now learn that Abu Musad al Zarqawi has two legs.

This will not strike you as a stop-the-presses moment unless you remember that al Zarqawi was one of Osama bin Laden's Number Two men (we seem to have captured several "Number Two" men already, with more still out there.) Pre-war, the administration claimed the reason it was so certain Saddam Hussein had ties to Al Qaeda was that Zarqawi had gone to Baghdad to get his leg amputated. But now, oops, he has two.
http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?itemid=16754


That little rewrite of history was accomplished shortly before he took centre stage as Enemy No. 1 in the War on Terra, when Zarqawi was accused of executing Nick Berg.

[Minstrel Boy]

8. "Ansar al-Islam leader threatens to document his links to US"

Al Zarqawi, remember, was second-in-command of Ansar al-Islam, not al Qaeda.

DUBAI, Feb 1 2003 (AFP) - The suspected leader of a Kurdish Islamic extremist group threatened in an interview published Saturday to produce evidence of his contacts with Washington prior to the September 11 suicide hijackings.

"I have in my possession irrefutable evidence against the Americans and I am prepared to supply it ... if (the United States) tries to implicate me in an affair linked to terrorism," Mullah Krekar, who is believed to front Ansar al-Islam, told Al-Hayat newspaper.

He dismissed as "fabrications" reports linking his group to Al-Qaeda, saying they were designed to justify a strike against Iraq.

"I had a meeting with a CIA representative and someone from the American army in the town of Sulaymaniya (Iraqi Kurdistan) at the end of 2000. They asked us to collaborate with them ... but we refused to do so," he said.

And here:

"The Mullah claims he had a secret meeting with the CIA and US military personnel in Iraqi Kurdistan last year. Could this explain why US intelligence agencies were reportedly so concerned about Powell raising Ansar al-Islam as one of the key connections between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda?"


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=556131#556178

[Minstrel Boy]

9. think this deserves a kick n/t