Abu Musab Zarqawi: Did Bush Let Him Live?

[anatta]

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

Did anyone else hear about this? Strange that it hasn't gotten more coverage, since if true, it looks really bad.

[Dynasty]

It says in the article that the opportunity to get Zaraqwi was in June of 2002. In order to launch an attack inside Iraq, it would be necessary to get the political backing, especially inside the U.S., to conduct such an operation.

One reality of war is that you have to have the support of the people in order to fight. If you don't, a military attack will undercut an administration's attempt to use military force for any future needs.

Since Zarqawi was basically an unknown to the American public at the time, I don't think the U.S. could launch an attack inside Iraq to get him without it making it difficult to conduct future operations elsewhere.

Just look at how the current war in Iraq has split the country despite a general concensus that Saddam Hussein was a dictator who the world is better of with him out of power.

The use of military force is fruitless unless it has political backing at home. President Franklin Roosevelt waited two years before he could get the U.S. into World War II specifically because the political support wasn't there among the public.

[Stu Pidasso]

I once slow played flopped quad 2s only to be beat by someone who runner runnered quad 3s. I look back at that hand and sometimes say to myself, "If I had only bet the flop".

All that article says is that if we had attacked that camp ealier we may have got lucky and got him. I think if we actually knew he was at the camp at a specific given time, we would know today how many legs this guy has(something we do not know today).

It would have been logical for the planners to conclude that we would have a much better chance of actually offing this guy once we had 150k troops on the ground and control of the country. In that case we may have also gleemed some valuable intelligence in connection with his death or capture. Had we killed him with a cruise missle, It probably would have been a very lucky shot, and we probably would not gain any new intelligence out of it.

Stu

[nicky g]

" One reality of war is that you have to have the support of the people in order to fight. If you don't, a military attack will undercut an administration's attempt to use military force for any future needs.

Since Zarqawi was basically an unknown to the American public at the time, I don't think the U.S. could launch an attack inside Iraq to get him without it making it difficult to conduct future operations elsewhere."

I don;t think that's necessarily true. For example, the US used a drone to kill a group of obscure al-Qaeda suspects in Yemen with little outrage. Also the camp was inside the Iraqi no-fly zone, so it wouldn;t have meant a confrontation with the Iraqis, just this group.

[ACPlayer]

We can certainly play what if games here from the sounds of this story. The most compelling point against the Bush administration in the article, to my mind, is:

“People were more obsessed with developing the coalition to overthrow Saddam than to execute the president’s policy of preemption against terrorists,” according to terrorism expert and former National Security Council member Roger Cressey.

which is exactly the criticism that some of us have levelled against the administration plans on Iraq. The war on terror has taken a back stage to adventurism, driven by other considerations, in the middle east