Monday, October 25, 2004
Failure of Leadership
The Wall Street Journal is now asking why we didn't take out Zarqawi when we had the chance:
To sum things up, we had the #1 Terrorist in Iraq, in our sights, but flightsuit boy failed to take him out, because of political reasons. Not only was Zarqawi a known terrorist, but he was also attempting to make chemcial weapons, to use against us and our allies, yet Bush failed to act like a leader. This is the same guy that's running for Re-Election on being a strong leader for the war on terror???
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As the toll of mayhem inspired by terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi mounts in Iraq, some former officials and military officers increasingly wonder whether the Bush administration made a mistake months before the start of the war by stopping the military from attacking his camp in the northeastern part of that country.
The Pentagon drew up detailed plans in June 2002, giving the administration a series of options for a military strike on the camp Mr. Zarqawi was running then in remote northeastern Iraq, according to generals who were involved directly in planning the attack and several former White House staffers. They said the camp, near the town of Khurmal, was known to contain Mr. Zarqawi and his supporters as well as al Qaeda fighters, all of whom had fled from Afghanistan. Intelligence indicated the camp was training recruits and making poisons for attacks against the West.
Senior Pentagon officials who were involved in planning the attack said that even by spring 2002 Mr. Zarqawi had been identified as a significant terrorist target, based in part on intelligence that the camp he earlier ran in Afghanistan had been attempting to make chemical weapons, and because he was known as the head of a group that was plotting, and training for, attacks against the West. He already was identified as the ringleader in several failed terrorist plots against Israeli and European targets.
To sum things up, we had the #1 Terrorist in Iraq, in our sights, but flightsuit boy failed to take him out, because of political reasons. Not only was Zarqawi a known terrorist, but he was also attempting to make chemcial weapons, to use against us and our allies, yet Bush failed to act like a leader. This is the same guy that's running for Re-Election on being a strong leader for the war on terror???
