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U.S. Avoided Attacking Terrorist Mastermind

(NBC News) With Tuesday's attacks, Abu Musab Zarqawi, a Jordanian militant with ties to al-Qaeda, is now blamed for more than 700 terrorist killings in Iraq. In June 2002, the Bush administration had several chances to wipe out his terrorist operation and perhaps kill Zarqawi himself - but never pulled the trigger. U.S. officials say intelligence had revealed that Zarqawi and members of al-Qaeda had set up a weapons lab at Kirma, in northern Iraq, producing deadly ricin and cyanide. The Pentagon quickly drafted plans to attack the camp with cruise missiles and air strikes and sent it to the White House, where, according to U.S. government sources, the plan was debated to death in the National Security Council. "Here we had targets, we had opportunities, we had a country willing to support casualties, or risk casualties after 9/11, and we still didn't do it," said Michael O'Hanlon, military analyst with the Brookings Institution. "People were more obsessed with developing the coalition to overthrow Saddam than to execute the president's policy of preemption against terrorists," according to terrorism expert and former National Security Council member Roger Cressey.
2004-03-05 00:00:00
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