Who benefits most from this? Okay, maybe some mole within AQ gets $25 million, but think of the timing. They've been waiting a while to use this card. So, what's happened lately that would warrant dropping the Zarqawi card now?
The U.S. just turned down the drum beats toward war with Iran, and Tehran indicates that it may take the carrots being offered by the EU3, Russia and China. What does Iran have to do with this, you might ask? Everything.
Think about it. Before the November elections, the Administration now gets to claim "stabilization" in Iraq and a "stand-down" by Iran over nukes (we'll see some sort of deal cut), while Iran gets what was inevitable from that day in March 2003: a new western province.
It also avoids a knock-down, drag-out with the Joint Chiefs over attacking Iran, something the uniforms are dead-set against.
This outcome that benefits Iran and BushCo wasn't so hard to foresee when we got into this mess:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/2/23/13411/1965 The whole bloody Iraqi occupation was over the terms by which the U.S. and Iran would divide Iraq. We end up with the short end of that stick. Dubya's circle of genius advisors did it again! They're trying to spin this one, but within a few months are going to be given a military tribunal, a hankerchief, and a last cigar.
They could have killed Zarqawi years ago, but opted not to because of politics. Even when you're way ahead in the game, to use H2O Man's chess metaphor, you need to keep track of the pawns on the board. In the right hands, pawns if they last long enough can advance to become queens. This mistake can turn the game around, as did Zarqawi with his politically skillful use of IEDs and truck bombs.
When did the CIA actually lose control of Zarqawi? My guess would be that the bombing of the UN compound wasn't expected at Langley. Can we date it from 08/19/2003?
More recently, certainly since mid-2004, there's very little that goes on around Baghdad that Iran doesn't have a really good picture of. Outside the Green Zone, far better than we do.
This week seemed a good time to trade some pieces.
That brings us to the central question about Zarqawi: why did the White House let Zarqawi run loose? This wouldn't be the first time targets were skipped over by the geniuses who run this President for political reasons, and the results were disaster. One can easily conclude that was the very reason that 9/11 happened. See, my comment at the end of the string: The Next Hurrah: "Pigs Fly and emptywheel Believes Judy"
http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/... ... h/2006/05/pigs_fly_and_em.html
I have problems with David Corn sometimes, but on this he may be right two years ago when he reported:
http://www.thenation.com/blogs/capitalgames?pid=1501on March 2, NBC News reported that "long before the war the Bush administration had several chances to wipe out terrorist operation and perhaps kill Zarqawi himself--but never pulled the trigger." Three times in 2002 and 2003, according to this report, the Pentagon drew up plans to attack Zarqawi in his camp in northern Iraq. Yet
the White House said no. According to NBC News, "Military officials insist their case for attacking Zarqawi's operation was airtight, but the administration feared destroying the terrorist camp in Iraq could undercut its case for war against Saddam."
If this report was true, it should be big news. The White House had Zarqawi in its sights. Yet Bush officials believed that if they took him out, they would lose an argument for war. (At his presentation to the UN, Powell tried to use Zarqawi to link al Qaeda to Hussein.) So did politics trump a national security decision? Did the administration allow to roam free a terrorist who would become perhaps the biggest threat to American GIs in Iraqi today? Is Bush now playing politics with the truth by insisting there was a connection between al Qaeda and Hussein More on my take on Bush's deal with Iran:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/6/8/74541/27082 
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