Wampum

It is being reported that Abu Musab Zarqawi, the Jordanian terrorist responsible for many hundreds of deaths in Iraq, may have been killed by coalition forces in Mosul:

U.S. authorities are looking into whether al Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was killed in a gunfight in Mosul, a U.S. official said on Sunday, but a White House spokesman said that was "highly unlikely."

"Efforts are under way to determine whether Zarqawi was among those killed," the U.S. official, in Washington said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

He did not give any additional information.

It is worth remembering that the administration did not have to give Zarqawi an opportunity to lead the insurgency in Iraq. Please recall this NBC News report from spring of 2004:

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 killed it.

Why did the administration not take action to remove the Zarqawi threat?

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.

Please recall Mark Schmitt's point about the administration's Ideology of Information:

By this I mean the whole practice of evaluating all information going into the war not for its truth value, but for whether it promoted or hindered the administration's goal of being free to go to war. The President could have been given every bit of intelligence information available, and he and/or Cheney would have reached the same decision because they would have discarded, discounted, or disregarded most of it. Information that was Useful to that goal was put in one box, Not Useful put in another.

Wiping out the Zarqawi terrorist threat before the war was Not Useful to the goal of starting the war. As a result, the administration passed on several chances to eliminate the threat and hundreds and hundreds of people have since died at the hands of Zarqawi and his minions. Let's hope that the current rumors are true and that the threat is finally eliminated. After all, Mr. Bush got his war and he no longer has reason to think that wiping out a terrorist threat is Not Useful.