Bush stopped CIA from killing al-Zarqawi?

[ChrisNYC]

It seems to me I remember some stories from several months ago that the Bush administration prevented the CIA from taking out al-Zarqawi prior to the invasion because they felt it would weaken their reasons to invade. Now I can't find any links about this. Does anyone else remember this, and if so, do you have any links?

Thanks!

[whistle]

1. No, but if that's true, that should shut the freepers up...

...about Clinton failing to kill Bin Laden when he had the chance.

[fertilizeonarbusto]

2. this is true.

no links sorry, but i think i saw in the NY Times.

[goodhue]

3. it is something I have read

I also have read variously that al-Zarqawi was indeed killed in northern Iraq some time ago and that at one point he had only one leg.

[AntiCoup2K4]

5. Actually, wasn't he the guy who was supposedly surrounded...

...in the northwest corner of Pakistan a couple months back, and FAUX was speculating that they killed the guy, but didn't want to make it public until they had a positive ID on the corpse??

Damn, Zarqawi seems to get around even more than his boss Bin Laden. And on one leg no less. If he wasn't supposed to be a ruthless terrorist, you could almost admire the guy.

[goodhue]

6. you mean Ayman Al Zawahiri?

My understanding is that he is a different guy than Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. But maybe they are the same guy. I don't know.

[sinkingfeeling]

4. True, here's the link to story I saw....

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

"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."

[underpants]

7. Whoop there it is

Daming. Great find/keep.

[Killarney]

8. EVERYONE SHOULD READ THIS STORY

He had SEVERAL chances to get this guy and chose not to because he was focused on Saddam and felt that doing this would hurt his case for war with Iraq. It was all Saddam, all the time.

Shove this in the Freepers faces.