LoungeMachine
06-12-2006, 03:08 PM
MalaysiaSun.com Tuesday 13th June 2006 Issue 782
U.S.bombing kills 7 insurgents, baby, toddler
Why was Zarqawi silenced?
Monday 12th June, 2006
On Wednesday last week the U.S. military was tipped off that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian who has been dubbed a "terrorist mastermind, and the "al-Qaeda leader in Iraq," was staying at a house near the town of Baqubah.
No doubt the information detailed who the other occupants of the house were. They comprised Zarqawi's spiritual advisor, three women, and an 8 year old girl.
It seems ironic that with an opportunity to capture and interrogate the ringleader of the premier insurgency in Iraq, the U.S. military, or the Bush administration, whoever was responsible, elected instead to eliminate him. There is clearly no doubt the U.S. wanted to kill Zarqawi. Employing the use of a F-16 warplane and dropping two five-hundred pounds on the house where Zarqawi was, guaranteed no-one in the house would survive.
Despite this, and despite earlier denials, the U.S. military concedes now Zarqawi was alive after the air strike. Shortly thereafter though he was dead.
Reports emerged over the weekend, mainly in Britain, that Zarqawi was taken from an ambulance where he had been placed by local residents, and bludgeoned to death by U.S. troops. Various newspapers in Britain have reported eyewitness accounts which contrast with military statements which say U.S. army medics tried to save his life.
An autopsy has since been carried out on Zarqawi's body. It was performed by U.S. military doctors.
Zarqawi has long been a controversial figure since he first came to fame in February 2003 when former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell named him as an Iraqi-based al-Qaeda operative, a link that had no evidence to support it. Zarqawi went on following the March 2003 insurgency to be a major face of the insurgency and a computer disc curiously turned up subsequently which had a memo from Zarqawi to al-Qaeda's Osama bin Laden. In the memo Zarqawi allegedly wrote, ""We will be your readied soldiers, working under your banner, complying with your orders and indeed swearing fealty to you publicly and in the news media."
Bush administration officials, including President Bush, described the letter as proof of al-Qaeda activities in Iraq. From thereon Zarqawi was known as al-Qaeda's leader in Iraq.
U.S. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said following Zarqawi's death, "This has to be a shock to the al-Qaeda system, not just in Iraq but elsewhere. The benefit is enormous for the Iraqi people."
"Here's a man who has killed literally thousands of people, innocent men, women and children. He has incited sectarian violence. He was a center of the financing network and of the operational network, and the link between the Iraqi operation and elements outside of Iraq."
So why wasn't he captured?
In that the occupants of the safe-house consisted of Zarqawi, his spiritual leader, three women, and an 8 year old girl, was at least a siege not possible, if they could not have been taken by surprise?
Why drop two five hundred pound bombs? Aside from Zarqawi there was no-one else in the house considered a threat. And therein lies the other curiosity. For all he was made out to be why drop such devastating bombs on a house that could well contain incredible intelligence resources including, quite possibly, computers.
When the two sons of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, Uday and Qusay, were killed in a six hour raid on a house in Mosul in July 2003, similar questions arose then, given that Saddam was still at large.
At a press briefing the day following the Hussein brothers deaths the following exchanges were recorded between Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the Coalition Commander in Iraq, and reporters:
Q: "Ibrahim Hayat (ph), Al-Hayat, LDC. I would like to ask you, don't you regret the fact that you couldn't get Uday and Qusay alive? It would have been probably the source of a lot of information could have got from them both. Also, wasn't a failure in a way, because you didn't use commandos to come and surprise them both? You conducted operation in a very traditional way. How would you describe it? All this attack preparation was only to surround five, probably four people who were armed with light weapons. And also, what about the child of Qusay?"
Sanchez: "On whether this was a failure, absolutely not. I would never consider this a failure. Our mission is to find, kill or capture. In this case, we had an enemy that was defending, it was barricaded, and we had to take the measures that were necessary in order to neutralize the target. When you look at the possibilities of what you may have gained or what you may have lost, that would be pure speculation on my part at this point."
Q: "Do you take an idea to discussion, by yourself or the responsible (the ?) attack, to take discussion with Uday or Qusay before the attack to get themselves out, or really you are going to do the attack? And it's what we needed in all of Iraq. Thank you."
Sanchez: "Okay, sir. In terms of the discussions, as I stated, we did make an attempt with interpreter and with bull horns to try to attempt to get a surrender from the personnel that were in the house. And what we got back was return fire. And therefore, we had to execute in the fashion that we did."
Sanchez: "Next question."
Q: "Thank you. General, I'd like to try and see if you could address more of the first question which we had from our colleague up front. The Americans are specialists in surrounding places, keeping people in them, holding up for a week, if necessary, to make them surrender. These guys only had, it appears, AK-47s, and you had immense amount of firepower. Surely, the possibility of the immense amount of information they could have given coalition forces, not to mention the trials that they could have been put on for war crimes, held out a much greater possibility of victory for you if you could have surrounded that house and just sat there until they came out, even if they were prepared to keep shooting."
Sanchez: "Sir, that is speculation."
"Next slide (sic)."
Q: "No, sir, it's an operational question. Surely you must have considered this much more seriously than you suggested."
Sanchez: "Yes, it was considered, and we chose the course of action that we took."
Q: "Why, sir?"
Sanchez: "Next slide -- or, next question, please."
Like Saddam's sons if Zarqawi was all he was made out to be he would have been a treasure trove of information. Adrian Bloomfield of London's Daily Telegraph however wrote in October 2004, "Several U.S. military sources say the importance of Zarqawi, blamed for many of the most spectacular acts of violence in Iraq, has been exaggerated by flawed intelligence and the Bush administration's desire to find "a villain" for the post-invasion mayhem.
He quoted senior diplomats in Iraq as saying they believed the letter linking Zarqawi to al-Qaeda was a fake.
"We were basically paying up to $10,000 a time to opportunists, criminals and chancers who passed off fiction and supposition about Zarqawi as cast-iron fact, making him out as the linchpin of just about every attack in Iraq," a U.S. military intelligence agent told Bloomfield.
"Back home this stuff was gratefully received and formed the basis of policy decisions. We needed a villain, someone identifiable for the public to latch on to, and we got one."
The sprawling U.S. intelligence community is in a state of open political warfare amid conflicting pressures from election-year politics, military combat and intelligence analysis. The Bush administration has seized on Zarqawi as the principal leader of the insurgency, mastermind of the country's worst suicide bombings and the man behind the abduction of foreign hostages. He is held up as the most tangible link to Osama bin Laden and proof of the claim that the former Iraqi regime had links to al-Qa'eda, wrote Bloomfield.
So it seems using the two 500 pound bombs was more likely to kill a myth, than a mastermind.
U.S.bombing kills 7 insurgents, baby, toddler
Why was Zarqawi silenced?
Monday 12th June, 2006
On Wednesday last week the U.S. military was tipped off that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian who has been dubbed a "terrorist mastermind, and the "al-Qaeda leader in Iraq," was staying at a house near the town of Baqubah.
No doubt the information detailed who the other occupants of the house were. They comprised Zarqawi's spiritual advisor, three women, and an 8 year old girl.
It seems ironic that with an opportunity to capture and interrogate the ringleader of the premier insurgency in Iraq, the U.S. military, or the Bush administration, whoever was responsible, elected instead to eliminate him. There is clearly no doubt the U.S. wanted to kill Zarqawi. Employing the use of a F-16 warplane and dropping two five-hundred pounds on the house where Zarqawi was, guaranteed no-one in the house would survive.
Despite this, and despite earlier denials, the U.S. military concedes now Zarqawi was alive after the air strike. Shortly thereafter though he was dead.
Reports emerged over the weekend, mainly in Britain, that Zarqawi was taken from an ambulance where he had been placed by local residents, and bludgeoned to death by U.S. troops. Various newspapers in Britain have reported eyewitness accounts which contrast with military statements which say U.S. army medics tried to save his life.
An autopsy has since been carried out on Zarqawi's body. It was performed by U.S. military doctors.
Zarqawi has long been a controversial figure since he first came to fame in February 2003 when former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell named him as an Iraqi-based al-Qaeda operative, a link that had no evidence to support it. Zarqawi went on following the March 2003 insurgency to be a major face of the insurgency and a computer disc curiously turned up subsequently which had a memo from Zarqawi to al-Qaeda's Osama bin Laden. In the memo Zarqawi allegedly wrote, ""We will be your readied soldiers, working under your banner, complying with your orders and indeed swearing fealty to you publicly and in the news media."
Bush administration officials, including President Bush, described the letter as proof of al-Qaeda activities in Iraq. From thereon Zarqawi was known as al-Qaeda's leader in Iraq.
U.S. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said following Zarqawi's death, "This has to be a shock to the al-Qaeda system, not just in Iraq but elsewhere. The benefit is enormous for the Iraqi people."
"Here's a man who has killed literally thousands of people, innocent men, women and children. He has incited sectarian violence. He was a center of the financing network and of the operational network, and the link between the Iraqi operation and elements outside of Iraq."
So why wasn't he captured?
In that the occupants of the safe-house consisted of Zarqawi, his spiritual leader, three women, and an 8 year old girl, was at least a siege not possible, if they could not have been taken by surprise?
Why drop two five hundred pound bombs? Aside from Zarqawi there was no-one else in the house considered a threat. And therein lies the other curiosity. For all he was made out to be why drop such devastating bombs on a house that could well contain incredible intelligence resources including, quite possibly, computers.
When the two sons of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, Uday and Qusay, were killed in a six hour raid on a house in Mosul in July 2003, similar questions arose then, given that Saddam was still at large.
At a press briefing the day following the Hussein brothers deaths the following exchanges were recorded between Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the Coalition Commander in Iraq, and reporters:
Q: "Ibrahim Hayat (ph), Al-Hayat, LDC. I would like to ask you, don't you regret the fact that you couldn't get Uday and Qusay alive? It would have been probably the source of a lot of information could have got from them both. Also, wasn't a failure in a way, because you didn't use commandos to come and surprise them both? You conducted operation in a very traditional way. How would you describe it? All this attack preparation was only to surround five, probably four people who were armed with light weapons. And also, what about the child of Qusay?"
Sanchez: "On whether this was a failure, absolutely not. I would never consider this a failure. Our mission is to find, kill or capture. In this case, we had an enemy that was defending, it was barricaded, and we had to take the measures that were necessary in order to neutralize the target. When you look at the possibilities of what you may have gained or what you may have lost, that would be pure speculation on my part at this point."
Q: "Do you take an idea to discussion, by yourself or the responsible (the ?) attack, to take discussion with Uday or Qusay before the attack to get themselves out, or really you are going to do the attack? And it's what we needed in all of Iraq. Thank you."
Sanchez: "Okay, sir. In terms of the discussions, as I stated, we did make an attempt with interpreter and with bull horns to try to attempt to get a surrender from the personnel that were in the house. And what we got back was return fire. And therefore, we had to execute in the fashion that we did."
Sanchez: "Next question."
Q: "Thank you. General, I'd like to try and see if you could address more of the first question which we had from our colleague up front. The Americans are specialists in surrounding places, keeping people in them, holding up for a week, if necessary, to make them surrender. These guys only had, it appears, AK-47s, and you had immense amount of firepower. Surely, the possibility of the immense amount of information they could have given coalition forces, not to mention the trials that they could have been put on for war crimes, held out a much greater possibility of victory for you if you could have surrounded that house and just sat there until they came out, even if they were prepared to keep shooting."
Sanchez: "Sir, that is speculation."
"Next slide (sic)."
Q: "No, sir, it's an operational question. Surely you must have considered this much more seriously than you suggested."
Sanchez: "Yes, it was considered, and we chose the course of action that we took."
Q: "Why, sir?"
Sanchez: "Next slide -- or, next question, please."
Like Saddam's sons if Zarqawi was all he was made out to be he would have been a treasure trove of information. Adrian Bloomfield of London's Daily Telegraph however wrote in October 2004, "Several U.S. military sources say the importance of Zarqawi, blamed for many of the most spectacular acts of violence in Iraq, has been exaggerated by flawed intelligence and the Bush administration's desire to find "a villain" for the post-invasion mayhem.
He quoted senior diplomats in Iraq as saying they believed the letter linking Zarqawi to al-Qaeda was a fake.
"We were basically paying up to $10,000 a time to opportunists, criminals and chancers who passed off fiction and supposition about Zarqawi as cast-iron fact, making him out as the linchpin of just about every attack in Iraq," a U.S. military intelligence agent told Bloomfield.
"Back home this stuff was gratefully received and formed the basis of policy decisions. We needed a villain, someone identifiable for the public to latch on to, and we got one."
The sprawling U.S. intelligence community is in a state of open political warfare amid conflicting pressures from election-year politics, military combat and intelligence analysis. The Bush administration has seized on Zarqawi as the principal leader of the insurgency, mastermind of the country's worst suicide bombings and the man behind the abduction of foreign hostages. He is held up as the most tangible link to Osama bin Laden and proof of the claim that the former Iraqi regime had links to al-Qa'eda, wrote Bloomfield.
So it seems using the two 500 pound bombs was more likely to kill a myth, than a mastermind.