Bush Turned Down At Least Three Opportunities to Take Zarkawi Out

It is very good news that Zarkawi is no longer able to threaten our troops or the Iraqi people. But it must be remembered that the US military offered several plans to take out Zarkawi and his terrorist organization before the start of the Iraq War, but the Bush White House turned them all down fearing that it might lessen support for invading Iraq according to terrorism expert and former Bush Administration National Security Council member Roger Cressey. At least three separate times the military begged the Bush White House to let them take Zarkawi and his terrorist organization out and every time the White House refused because it might lessen international support for invading Iraq. So they let him live and his most heinous activities occurred after that point until his death this month.

Zarkawi was operating a terrorist training camp in Kurdish controlled Northern Iraq north of the No Fly Zone in an area that Saddam had no control over because UN sanctions prevented him from sending his fighter planes there and without air cover his ground troops wouldn’t survive in the Kurdish North. Even Colin Powell while he was Secretary of State and pushing for war in Iraq admitted this was so. Bush refused to take out a known terrorist after September 11, in an area that Saddam didn’t control because it might have drawn attention to a terrorist group set on overthrowing Saddam.

At the time that Bush had a chance to take out Zarkawi, Zarkawi was working with an al-Qaeda aligned and Kurdish supported terrorist group set on overthrowing Saddam Hussein. After Saddam was overthrown by our forces, Zarkawi turned his hatred on the US and committed his most vile atrocities.

Zarkawi was a known terrorist in 2002, when our troops wanted to take him out. Bush put aside his desire to punish al-Qaeda linked terrorists in favor of ousting Saddam and the result was that al-Qaeda linked terrorists outside the area of Saddam’s control moved in to fill the vacuum and became much stronger in Iraq and the world. Bush also pulled US troops who had cornered bin Laden in the mountains of Afghanistan sending them to Iraq well before the start of the Iraq War. This is why bin Laden is alive today and why Zarkawi was allowed to become such a bloodthirsty butcher in Iraq.

More information about Zarkawi is available from these articles: http://www.thenation.com/blogs/capitalgames?pid=89600
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5058262.stm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Musab_al-Zarqawi
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eric-alterman/getting-zarqawi-four-year_b_22545.html