Great diary at Plame: An Innocent Explanation?
As I was previewing my comment I noticed it was long so I put it here instead.
Nothing is as it appears with these groups.
To start at the end and work backwards with curious connections, the first would be Zarqawi. Regardless of other discussions about him, it seems he was used from the beginning in several ways. The threat he initially presented is debatable as it was first claimed he was heavily involved in establishing bioweapons labs. The MSM reports focused on ricin especially. The following article excerpts are offered without a predetermination of my opinion of the validity of this threat. It could either be true as reported or it could also be the additional involvement of other interests furthering their own goals.
RICIN FEVER: ABU MUSAB AL-ZARQAWI IN THE PANKISI GORGE With Russia once again threatening pre-emptive strikes on "terrorist" installations in Georgia's Pankisi Gorge, it seems timely to re-examine the alleged activities of Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in the region several years ago. The Pankisi Gorge is a river valley about 34 km long in north-eastern Georgia. It is home to about 10,000 Kists, belonging to the same ethnic group as the Chechens and Ingush. After the outbreak of the second Russo-Chechen war in 1999, eight thousand Chechen refugees joined the Kists there. Arriving later were Chechen field commander Ruslan Gelayev and the survivors of the Battle of Komsomolskoye (site of a major Chechen defeat). Gelayev chose to rebuild his forces in the Pankisi Gorge; with Georgia engaged in a struggle with Russia over the breakaway provinces of Abkhazia and South Ossetia there was little danger of extradition.
In his pre-Iraq invasion address to the United Nations Security Council Secretary of State Colin Powell declared that "we know that Zarqawi's colleagues have been active in the Pankisi Gorge, Georgia, and in Chechnya, Russia. The plotting to which they are linked is not mere chatter. Members of Zarqawi's network said their goal was to kill Russians with toxins." Powell emphasized the production of ricin as a major threat, and the importance of Zarqawi as a master poisoner. Abu Atiya (Adnan Muhammad Sadik) was named by Powell as the leader of al-Qaeda's Pankisi operations and part of Zarqawi's network. In July 2002, there were reports that the CIA had warned Turkish officials that Abu Atiya had sent chemical or biological materials to Turkey for use in terrorist attacks.
Georgian raids started in February 2002, while the main security "crackdown" in Pankisi was carefully timed to follow the September 2002 departure of Gelayev's forces for Russian territory. At the end of the security sweep in October, fifteen minor Arab militants were turned over to the U.S. The operation marked the first deployment of Georgian graduates of the Train and Equip program, a U.S. initiative to train a core professional army for Georgia. No evidence of chemical labs was discovered, though Georgia cautiously conceded that some militants in the Pankisi Gorge "may" have been chemical weapons experts.
In the buildup to the Iraqi war in early 2003, dozens of North Africans (mainly Algerians) were arrested in Britain, France and Spain on charges of preparing ricin and other chemical weapons. Colin Powell and others trumpeted the arrests as proof of the threat posed by the Zarqawi-Chechen-Pankisi ricin network (which had now been expanded to include the Ansar al-Islam of Kurdish northern Iraq).
French and British security officials were astounded by Powell's insistence on February 12, 2003, that "the ricin that is bouncing around Europe now originated in Iraq." With the Iraq invasion only weeks away, the source of the ricin threat moved from Georgia to Iraq. In the UK charges were dropped when government laboratories could find no trace of the poison in seized material. In Spain all the suspects were released when the poisons turned out to be bleach and detergent. In France, ricin samples were revealed to be barley and wheat germ. [2]
I’ve always been of the opinion that Zarqawi is a legend created by propaganda from a character chosen by convenience.
Conclusion
There is no evidence that Zarqawi knows anything about the manufacture or deployment of chemical and biological weapons. In the aftermath of the Jordan bombing attempt in April, Zarqawi made his only known statement on the use of chemical weapons, posted on http://alminbar.front.ru: "If we had such a bomb - and we ask God that we have such a bomb soon - we would not hesitate for a moment to strike Israeli towns." [4]
Jordan's King Abdullah II referred to Zarqawi as a "street thug" last July, adding that the media had inflated Zarqawi's intelligence and skills to create a larger threat. Jordanian security services claimed the attempted attack was a chemical assault using nerve gas and blister agents, capable of killing 80,000 people. No evidence was presented, and even Zarqawi refuted the use of chemical agents in the plot. [5] Zarqawi's career has followed the path of high-school dropout, failed video retailer, prisoner and gunman. It is thus impossible to identify how or when Zarqawi became an expert in chemistry.
So, it looks like a legitimate threat existed but that it was also used for propaganda and also the false threat became another justification for war.
If Zarqawi did pose that threat, why didn’t the administration take him out when they had the chance? They had at least 3 offers by the military who had him in their sights and were ready to pull the trigger.
Avoiding attacking suspected terrorist mastermind
With Tuesday's attacks, Abu Musab Zarqawi, a Jordanian militant with ties to al-Qaida, is now blamed for more than 700 terrorist killings in Iraq.
But 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.
In June 2002, U.S. officials say intelligence had revealed that Zarqawi and members of al-Qaida 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 airstrikes 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.
Somebody was on the ball in the Pentagon but the admin, especially NSC were dragging their feet. I don’t think this article includes it but the justification finally given was that it was a concern that a strike like that would impede or compromise the ensuing invasion.
"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.
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. By then the administration had set its course for war with Iraq.
"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.
I think the report of exchanges in the NSC of debate show that back at that time there were still forces of influence who were trying to do the right thing. The logical decision would have been to take Zarqawi out. If the Zarqawi legend is all created, but created from a credible seed of threat, then it appears that Cressey and others weren’t aware of this. Of course, I could be completely wrong about all of it.
n 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.
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.
The United States did attack the camp at Kirma at the beginning of the war, but it was too late -- Zarqawi and many of his followers were gone. "Here's a case where they waited, they waited too long and now we're suffering as a result inside Iraq," Cressey added.
The short story here is that it’s my opinion that Zarqawi was created as a threat early on to provide a subject. I think it also shows the multiple uses of Zarqawi as a future tool of propaganda to claim a threat of bioterrorism. This isn’t just a US false claim for war in Iraq. This is a global network.
