This appears to be another PR gimmick by the Pentagon. I mean why do they feel the rush to "leak" something without concrete proof? Time and time again, we've been told al Qaeda's No.3 man has been captured or killed, but No.3 keeps popping up. In a sense, it is like Department of Homeland Security's repeated false terror alarms. The only difference is, one is false positive, the other is false negative.
The more veteran leadership you kill the more those slots get filled by terrorists with less operational experience. That results in more dead terrorists. So yeah, there is a reason to 'care.'
I wonder if the posters who made incorrect assumptions about Azadre will apologize for their intitial suppositions on Azadre not being enthused about a news story that didn't come to be.
US Military now says it 'Just Missed' Zarqawi ... http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10107233/ Al-Zarqawi dead or alive after gunfight? Minister says he might have died; U.S. military feels it 'just missed' him NBC News and news services Updated: 1:54 p.m. ET Nov. 21, 2005 BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraq's foreign minister said Monday that terror leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi might have been killed in a gunfight with U.S. forces over the weekend, but U.S. military sources told NBC News that's probably not the case and that troops likely "just missed" capturing him. "American and Iraqi forces are investigating the possibility that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's corpse is among the bodies of some terrorists who died in the special military operation in Mosul," Hoshyar Zebari told Jordan's official Petra news agency during a visit to Moscow. A Pentagon source said that the military did have intelligence that indicated al-Zarqawi was meeting in a Mosul home with high-level Iraq in al-Qaida lieutenants. As soldiers closed in on the site, there was an exchange of small arms fire, then it appears that three al-Qaida suspects blew themselves up to avoid capture. The military is conducting DNA tests on flesh and blood recovered from the scene, but a Pentagon official said indications are that al-Zarqawi is not among those killed. "The information was solid. We just missed him," said one Pentagon source. Separately, White House spokesman Trent Duffy said Sunday that reports of al-Zarqawi's death were "highly unlikely and not credible." "We have no indication that al-Zarqawi was killed in this fight and we continue operations to search for him," added Lt. Col. Barry Johnson, a U.S. military spokesman. The elusive al-Zarqawi has narrowly escaped capture in the past. U.S. forces said they nearly caught him in a February 2005 raid that recovered his computer.
It would be good if Zarqawi is caught or killed. Of course it would be good if some of the death squads runnning around executing Sunnis by "our Iraqis" were also caught or killed. It would not be good for Bush except for a few days as as when the resistance continues, it tends to emphasize what the war supporters try to ignore, that the resistance is 95% Iraqis. Sadly as remarked by other posters, this report may just be another pr piece, ala Jessica Lynch, Pat Tillman etc. etc. which we see released periodically to take a bit of heat off of another bad week in Iraq and give the illusion of progress in between ballyhooed landmarks like constitutions and elections. After all, you can't keep running "the number 3 man in Al Qaeda "killed stories every other week-- even if it is enough to keep the dittos content.
Oh...we just missed him. Al Zarqawi went out for a big mac and missed the firefight. Darn. So, what else is new? Later, Zarqawi was seen enjoying a caramel sundae on the outskirts of Mosul.
