Al-Qaeda, CNN, & Bush’s Plan

by John Hawkins | February 9, 2004 10:56 pm

You’d never know it from watching the news, but apparently things aren’t going so well for Al-Qaeda in Iraq. It seems that Al-Qaeda’s head man over there, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi[1], is actually getting a bit frantic because things aren’t going so well…

“American officials here have obtained a detailed proposal that they conclude was written by an operative in Iraq to senior leaders of Al Qaeda, asking for help to wage a “sectarian war” in Iraq in the next months.

The Americans say they believe that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian who has long been under scrutiny by the United States for suspected ties to Al Qaeda, wrote the undated 17-page document. Mr. Zarqawi is believed to be operating here in Iraq.

…The American officials in Baghdad said they were confident the account was credible and said they had independently corroborated Mr. Zarqawi’s authorship. If it is authentic, it offers an inside account of the insurgency and its frustrations, and bears out a number of American assumptions about the strength and nature of religious extremists — but it also charts out a battle to come.

…In the period before the war, Bush administration officials argued that Mr. Zarqawi constituted the main link between Al Qaeda and Mr. Hussein’s government. Last February at the United Nations, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said, “Iraq today harbors a deadly terrorist network, headed by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, an associate and collaborator of Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda lieutenants.”

…In the document, the writer indicated that he had directed about 25 suicide bombings inside Iraq. That conforms with an American view that suicide bombings were more likely to be carried out by Iraqi religious extremists and foreigners than by Hussein allies.

“We were involved in all the martyrdom operations — in terms of overseeing, preparing and planning — that took place in this country,” the writer of the document says. “Praise be to Allah, I have completed 25 of these operations, some of them against the Shia and their leaders, the Americans and their military, and the police, the military and the coalition forces.”

But the writer details the difficulties that he and his comrades have been experiencing, both in combating American forces and in enlisting supporters. The Americans are an easy target, according to the author, who nonetheless claims to be impressed by the Americans’ resolve. After significant losses, he writes, “America, however, has no intention of leaving, no matter how many wounded nor how bloody it becomes.”

The Iraqis themselves, the writer says, have not been receptive to taking holy warriors into their homes.

“Many Iraqis would honor you as a guest and give you refuge, for you are a Muslim brother,” according to the document. “However, they will not allow you to make their home a base for operations or a safe house.”

The writer contends that the American efforts to set up Iraqi security services have succeeded in depriving the insurgents of allies, particularly in a country where kinship networks are extensive.

“The problem is you end up having an army and police connected by lineage, blood and appearance,” the document says. “When the Americans withdraw, and they have already started doing that, they get replaced by these agents who are intimately linked to the people of this region.”

With some exasperation, the author writes: “We can pack up and leave and look for another land, just like what has happened in so many lands of jihad. Our enemy is growing stronger day after day, and its intelligence information increases.

“By God, this is suffocation!” the writer says.

But there is still time to mount a war against the Shiites, thereby to set off a wider war, he writes, if attacks are well under way before the turnover of sovereignty in June. After that, the writer suggests, any attacks on Shiites will be viewed as Iraqi-on-Iraqi violence that will find little support among the people.

“We have to get to the zero hour in order to openly begin controlling the land by night, and after that by day, God willing,” the writer says. “The zero hour needs to be at least four months before the new government gets in place.”

That is the timetable, the author concludes, because, after that, “How can we kill their cousins and sons?”

“The Americans will continue to control from their bases, but the sons of this land will be the authority,” the letter states. “This is the democracy. We will have no pretexts.”

Yes, even as the Democrats moan that Bush has no plan, al-Zarqawi fears its success. While anti-war leftists sneer at the idea that America can help Iraq become a Democracy, al-Zarqawi sees that “zero hour” fast approaching. If I may paraphrase a line Brandon Lee delivered in “The Crow,” I guess it’s not such a good day to be a bad guy in Iraq.

It’s also not such a good day to be a liberal journalist at CNN, because Glenn Reynolds[2] got a screenshot of a since corrected headline that put an anti-Bush spin on this news that has to be seen to be believed…

You shouldn’t be surprised when a snake acts like a snake or when a the liberal mainstream media shows their true colors during an election year. It’s just to be expected…

Endnotes:
  1. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/09/international/middleeast/09INTE.html?ex=1076907600&en=84c5cf739273755b&ei=5062&partner=GOOGLE
  2. Glenn Reynolds: http://www.instapundit.com

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