Too bad Jon Stewart did not know Bush passed up 3 chances to kill Zarqawi!

[flpoljunkie]

Or perhaps, he just forgot. Hitchens seemed obsesssed with the terrorist role Zarkawi has played in Iraq and the threat he still represents. And this report by Miklaszewski came out in March, 2004!

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

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 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. 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.

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 (Condi) killed it.

<>“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.

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

[still_one]

1. I was showing people that before the election

and they just didn't care

maybe things are different now

[still_one]

2. it always bothered me that Kerry never mentioned that in

the campaign, especially when the swift puke group came on the scene

[Inland]

3. D'oh! I made a duplicate post.

I too couldn't believe that Hitchens had the gall to bring up AlZarqawi "in Iraq." That assertion brings up the scandalous way the Bush adminstration used a terror base OUTSIDE OF the area controlled by Saddam, IN the area controlled by our Kurdish allies, to invade Iraq....and actually made the conscious choice to leave Zarqawi alive to strengthen the case for the Iraq war.

[flpoljunkie]

4. Precisely!