Bush Preserved Zarqawi's Weapons Lab to Justify American Invasion of Iraq

Before the invasion of Iraq, Zarqawi's presence was discovered and closely followed by U.S. Intelligence.

But nothing was done about it. In fact, Zarqawi's installation was Protected by the Bush Administration.

In an 5-Apr-07 interview with Rush Limbaugh, Dick Cheney boasted about this:

...remember Abu Musab al Zarqawi, a Jordanian terrorist, al Qaeda affiliate; ran a training camp in Afghanistan for al Qaeda, then migrated -- after we went into Afghanistan and shut him down there, he went to Baghdad, took up residence there before we ever launched into Iraq; organized the al Qaeda operations inside Iraq before we even arrived on the scene, and then, of course, led the charge for Iraq until we killed him last June.... This is al Qaeda operating in Iraq. And as I say, they were present before we invaded Iraq.

NBC News has learned that long before the war the Bush administration had several chances to wipe out his terrorist operation and perhaps kill Zarqawi himself — but never pulled the trigger. From NBC's Chief Pentagon correspondent Jim Miklaszewski's March 2, 2004 article Avoiding Attacking Suspected Terrorist Mastermind:

In June 2002, 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...Four months later, intelligence showed Zarqawi was planning to use ricin in terrorist attacks in Europe. The Pentagon drew up a second strike plan, and the White House again killed it...In January 2003, the threat turned real. Police in London arrested six terror suspects and discovered a ricin lab connected to the camp in Iraq...The Pentagon drew up still another attack plan, and for the third time, the National Security Council killed it .... the administration feared destroying the terrorist camp in Iraq could undercut its case for war against Saddam.

The Miklaszewski article, which cited unnamed sources, was confirmed in a 30-Apr-06 ABC TV interview with Mike Scheuer, who in 2002 was head of the CIA's Osama bin Laden unit.

Almost every day we sent a package to the White House that had overhead imagery of the house he [Zarqawi] was staying in. It was a terrorist training camp . . . experimenting with ricin and anthrax . . . any collateral damage there would have been terrorists.

This should be remembered as part of the history of Busheney's betrayal of America's trust.

Diary by Sarge in Seattle