And the screwups keep coming to light...

[khaosworks]

Avoiding attacking suspected terrorist mastermind
Abu Musab Zarqawi blamed for more than 700 killings in Iraq
By Jim Miklaszewski
Correspondent
NBC News
Updated: 7:14 p.m. ET March  02, 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.

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.

"Here we had targets, we had opportunities, we had a country willing to support casualties, or risk casualties after 9/11 and we still didn’t do it," said Michael O’Hanlon, military analyst with the Brookings Institution.

Four months 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.

“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.

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.

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.

The United States did attack the camp at Kirma at the beginning of the war, but it was too late — Zarqawi and many of his followers were gone.  “Here’s a case where they waited, they waited too long and now we’re suffering as a result inside Iraq,” Cressey added.

And despite the Bush administration’s tough talk about hitting the terrorists before they strike, Zarqawi’s killing streak continues today.

Comments

[billroper]

I have two questions:

And what would the reaction of the international community have been had we done so?

And what would your reaction have been had we done so at that time?

[khaosworks.livejournal.com]

In June of 2002?

There would have been some yelling, but if the strike was a surgical one, there wouldn't have been all that much protest. This was nine months after September 11, and goodwill had not been exhausted quite as yet.

A look over my own journal entries from that period show no real outrage against the Bush administration over any actions in the Middle East... because there weren't any of note. The Taliban more the heightening paranoia in the US and Bush trying to use the "war against terror" to push a right wing agenda. It was only when September rolled around that I started to make any mutterings about Bush's belligerence towards Iraq.

So - I would have demanded to see the evidence.

[patoadam]

I would much prefer to see the US attacking individual terrorists rather than countries. Saddam Hussein, for all his faults, did not conspire with Al Qaeda, AFAIK. My understanding is that Al Quaeda hated Saddam Hussein because he lead a secular Islamic state rather than a theocracy.