Reply #7: I have to wonder about this... [View All]

[punpirate]

... because two or three days before the beginning of the invasion, there was a story, about the village al-Zarqawi was supposedly at, in northeastern Kurdistan, being bombed because it was suspected that Zarqawi was there, and was teaching the villagers to make chemical poisons such as ricin and other chemical weapons. Supposedly, the CIA and a Special Forces team were there inspecting the area after the bombing and found zero evidence of either al-Zarqawi or chemical weapons manufacturing.

As the story went then, the US attacked the village based upon "intelligence" saying that a one-legged man was sighted there accompanied by an Iraqi military officer. This so-called evidence was highly dubious, because the area was not only well past the autonomous region border where Iraqi troops did not go, but it was not even under the control of either Kurd political party.

Now, I think this is important, because this village was one which Ansar al-Islam controlled, and it was a central point in the administration's argument that Iraq was cooperating with and aiding al-Qaeda.

Now, perhaps the justification for bombing this area is just an early version of an evolving mythology. I don't know. But, it doesn't exactly jive with the Miklaszewski story.

Cheers.