Centerfield

Fingers crossed. If true, this would be a huge victory. US forces have been ½ inch off Zarqawi's arse for some time now. With any luck, there will be a head left to hoist on the nearest pike.

Finally, some good news out of Iraq that CNN can't ignore. Boy that Cut and run stuff will look bad for a least a week if this is true.

While I'm happy to hear that eight more AQ members are dead in Iraq and think that's good news, the GREAT news would be if Zarqawi is one of them. He's "died" several times in unconfirmed media reports going back at least four years. Here's hoping.

If true, I hope the son of a bitch enjoys his time in hell.

Did you catch the headline in the AP confirmation you linked to? Zarqawi may be dead and their headline is "Two More U.S. Soldiers Killed in Iraq". I love these people.

Remember the old joke about the New York Times headline bias? "World Ends: Women, Minorities Hardest Hit"

If this turns out to be accurate, we will all have something to be extra thankful for this Thursday. This guy is (was?) 100% pure evil.

This guy is (was?) 100% pure evil.

His family publicly disclaimed him in the wake of the Jordan bombings. Sounds like even his mother doesn't love him anymore.

Jerusalem Post has amended their squib to identify Elaph Arab media website as the origin of the initial report.

Here's hoping. From the number of times he's been reported dead, Zarqawi seems to have more lives than the proverbial cat allotment. But either way, eight dead AQ leaders is Good News.

Tully, I'm excited by this report, but I don't put too much stock in the ad his family took out disowning him. He had just threatened the life of the King of the country where they all happen to live and have lots of assets. Publicly renouncing him could just be a survival mechanism. If 200,000 of my neighbors suddenly started rioting against actions taken by one of my brothers, I'd probably publicly denounce them, too... especially if the mob was on it's way to my house. But that doesn't mean I wouldn't slip my brother some cash or hide him out if he needed it.

His family publicly disclaimed him in the wake of the Jordan bombings. Sounds like even his mother doesn't love him anymore.

That's just the tip of the iceberg. As reported in the upcoming issue of The New Rupblic, the main preacher in the mosque in his hometown has declared him a kufr. And it's not like Zarqa is particularly friendly to the national government.

It's great if Zarqawi really is dead. He's a son of a bitch and deserves to fry in hell, if it exists.

It's a paper victory at this point if true, however. AQ is such a loose affiliation at this point and so adept at replacing people, it's tough to believe they'd have too much trouble recovering from losing him.

What's unfortunate is that we can seem to figure out how to really end the support these guys are getting.

Well, I disagree with you, Carla. If it is true (and I'm not convinced it is, yet), it is NOT a paper victory.

In the first place, although Zarqawi will definitely be replaced, it will almost certainly be by a less charismatic and capable field commander than him; and it could very well lead to a power struggle that could fragment the jihadists into numerous, smaller factions that can more easily be isolated and targeted. I know it's tough acknowledging that something-- anything-- can go right for this Administration in this War, but I suggest you're letting your partisan bias get the best of you in this one.

Secondly, depending on which part of the country you're in, some Coalition forces are having tremendous success at "figuring out how to end the support" the insurgents are getting. In fact, if Zarqawi really was in Mosul, it would follow logically from the possibility that just maybe operations in Ramadi, Fallujah, and Hadithah have made them an untenable risk for Zarqawi and his command cell to hide out.

By the way, interestingly enough, Stratfor is reporting that, if he's been killed, it may have been based off intelligence acquired by Jordanian security forces during their widespread crackdown last week (this would be indicated by greater Israeli knowledge of the rumor than US-- which would not be the case if we had gained the intel ourselves in Iraq).

The other possibility is that he may be alive, but that this is intended to support Talabani's emerging reconciliation concept and to "flush out" Zarqawi-- if he's believed dead, he knows that many of his subordinate commanders may choose to "come in from the cold," which could only then be countered by him making another "public" appearance to reassure them that he is alive, and this time in a time and manner not of his choice.

Or it could very well be a mistake. That's never happened before...

We'll just have to wait for further evidence to emerge.

I'll believe he's really dead when they positively ID his DNA scattered all over that house in small bloody bits. But as I said, 8 dead upper-level AQ leaders is nice in any case.

If Zarqawi is among them (and the gov't is being very careful not to raise hopes) it's much more than a paper victory. For starters, Zarqawi's presence would suggest that the some of the other 7 were very upper-level as well, and the combined hit could have utterly decapitated the AQ/Iraq command structure. And if Zarqawi is among the dead, then Talabani's current reconciliatory outreach to the native Sunni factions is going to yield much better results. Splitting the native portions of the insurgency off from the foreign jihadis would make it infinitely easier to deal with the jihadis.

As Bobby suggested, even if Zarqawi was not there the rumor that he was weakens his command "grip" and the influence of the jihadis in the runup to the election. AND increases pressure on the native insurgents to come to the table to deal and to vote instead of fight.

Here's hoping for good news from the lab.

100% evil and utterly convinced of his own righteousness. As an aside, I'm curious to know from where the DNA to which that from his remains will be compared comes. Is it actually his, or will they get it from close family members?

Dunno, WHQ. Jordan had him in jail for eight years, so they could certainly have blood samples and such. And there's apparently no problem with getting samples from family members. His brother in particular is not a fan of his sibling's actions.

Let's just hope Thomas Jefferson's descendents don't have to get involved.

LOL--then again, what about those 70 Virginians he can expect in heaven?

Some of those TJ descendants may already be involved, and not even know about their ancestry. Several of Sally Hemming's children that were "likely" as being TJ's kids moved away and vanished anonymously into history, "passing" into white society and marrying whites. Not too tough, as if they were actually TJ's kids they would've been 7/8's white, and all were well-educated. Hemmings was 3/4's white, and half-sister to TJ's wife. Can't imagine why he might have found her attractive and comforting to have around after his wife passed away.

His brother in particular is not a fan of his sibling's actions.

His Y-chromosome should do the trick.

It appears we probably did not get Zarqawi, after all.

“Unfortunately, we did not get him in Mosul,” Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad said of Iraq’s most feared terrorist.

Too bad. But his time will come. And when it does, it will be a real achievement-- not a hollow one-- although I'm sure that still won't keep critics frowm downplaying it.

Too bad. But his time will come. And when it does, it will be a real achievement-- not a hollow one-- although I'm sure that still won't keep critics frowm downplaying it.

After seeing how AQ has replaced top commander after top commander, I have a difficult time believing the death of Zarqawi would be any more relevant.

It's important to us because we know his name. But the way AQ appears to work, it's not terribly tough to replace people in key positions. Whether they'd be as charismatic..it's tough to say. But this sort of passionate hatred tends to breed whacko, charismatic assholes.

I'd love to see AQ go into dissaray. I'm not convinced that the death of Zarqawi would do it. Or even put a dent in it.

Carla, replacing low-level people isn't tough, but the upper echelons are a different story. What we've seen in Mosul and other places is that when we get a local leader, the replacements are much less able and are tracked down faster than the man before them. When the time-to-next-capture on the locals keeps declining it's a very good sign, and that's the kind of gradient we've seen.

The top-tier people are the ones with the access to the finance and communications. They're not that easily replaced, and it really hurts AQ to lose them. It disrupts their logistics tremendously.

Yeah, Bobby, that text is pretty much the same as the story linked in my last update. Still all guesswork until they get their DNA's done. Unless they have some inside info--and they wouldn't put it blatantly in the evening news if they did. Or shouldn't, anyway.

Tully, I agree with you on your points re: destroying the top leaders and replacing the jihadist leadership. It's obviously not a winning strategy in and of itself-- there's several other equally important effects that have to be achieved-- but its absolutely a key component.

Zalmay Khalilzad is one of the shrewdest men I have ever met in my life. If he's taking to the airwaves convinced that we didn't nail Zarqawi then (a) it's probably true, but more importantly (b) he has some reason for coming out and stating it. What that is, I'm really not sure, but I have a lot of faith in him.

Makes sense to me, Bobby--I certainly don't expect them to share sensitive field intel with the public to back up a refutation of a speculative kill. (I expect them to keep their sources secret and keep using them to good effect.)

But I still hope Khalilzad's wrong, and that they find Zarqawi bits & pieces all over the wreckage of that house. :-)

Getting Zarquawi would certainly help in the short run--it's not that easy to replace the top echelon--but whether it would have much effect in the long run is more debatable. Al Quaeda has essentially become a self-replicating organization, constantly training new cadres. And the more opportunities they have to recruit (ie, Iraq), the greater their ability to develop new leaders. I would certainly like to see him "real dead" but the only way to defeat Al Quaeda in the long run is to undermine their base of support within the Muslim world.

Bobby commented about critics downplaying it if Zarquawi is killed. Well, maybe they have a reason to; when we got Saddam, everyone trumpeted it as big victory that would seriously hurt the insurgency--obviously that was not correct.

when we got Saddam, everyone trumpeted it as big victory that would seriously hurt the insurgency--obviously that was not correct.

Hmm, that was not my impression. Were there good reasons to think saddam was acting as comannder in chief of the insurgents, as opposed to just running like a rat while protected by loyalists? I honestly don't know, I;m just asking.

My thinking at the time, which I think many pundits shared, was that the value in capturing Saddam was in good PR. Moreso good positive PR for getting Iraqis to support a new government as opposed to getting insurgents to quit. I do recall, as you suggest, that the thinking at the time was that many or most insurgents were ba'athists, so in that respect I guess there wassome thought that capturing Saddam would impact insurgent morale. Now of course, the thinking is that the insurgency is more of an AQ thing.

I don't think we've seen the value of SH's capture yet. I think we'll see it when his trial either does or does not have a national unifying effect on Iraqis.

Zarqawi is another matter, though. If we got him, I don't think it's reasonable to expect the negative effect on insurgents to be upon morale as much as upon operational effectiveness, as Boibby and Tully suggest. IMO, there's little reason to think we can change many minds and attitudes among insurgents, but we can make it progressively harder for them to succeed.

I do recall, as you suggest, that the thinking at the time was that many or most insurgents were ba'athists,

At the time, they were. As of now, they're not. The Sunnis and Baathists are a rapidly decreasing faction of the insurgency. (For those who have trouble with the idea that we're making progress, this IS progress.) The foreign jihadis are an increasing faction. And if and when the Sunnis come to the table and cease resistance operations, the jihadis and Baathists are going to be on the block. That, IMHO, will be the point at which the insurgency per se will crumble. Without support in the Sunni areas, the jihadis will be strangers in a strange land, without shelter, and their effectiveness will be marginal at best.

Bring the Sunnis to the table, get them in "the loop," and both the civil war scenarios and the jihadi problem will diminish enormously.

Again, killing Zarqawi (or any single senior leader) will neither end the insurgency nor will it won't solve any problems. I don't want to give the impression that that's what I think.

Indeed, the jihadists will continue with their operations, they will continue to recruit new members, and a new (or several new) jihadist leaders will emerge to fill the vacuum.

But it will have the benefit of (at least temporarily) disrupting the network, may produce inferior leadership (with far less experience), and has the potential to create fissures within the movement, if a power struggle emerges. It would be a good thing. But it won't be a magic solution, either.

And that's all I'm saying-- it's not a magic solution, but it won't be the paper or hollow victory that critics want to believe. If that's the case, then we might as well not target any senior leaders, since they'll just regenerate them...

I heard you, Bobby. There are no magic solutions. Or more properly, magic solutions require magic, of which there is none. No silver bullets. That's a big part of the problem with the public discourse--most folks believe in magic and silver bullets, and get quite annoyed when they fail to appear as the politicians keep promising them. More accurately, the politicians slam their opposition for not having magic bullets, even though they have none themselves.

Carla, replacing low-level people isn't tough, but the upper echelons are a different story. What we've seen in Mosul and other places is that when we get a local leader, the replacements are much less able and are tracked down faster than the man before them. When the time-to-next-capture on the locals keeps declining it's a very good sign, and that's the kind of gradient we've seen.

The top-tier people are the ones with the access to the finance and communications. They're not that easily replaced, and it really hurts AQ to lose them. It disrupts their logistics tremendously.

This piece lists 29 "key" Al Qaida members. 20 of them have been killed or captured. Yet Al Qaida seems to be operating efficiently enough to pull off minor to serious attacks on a regular basis.

Personally..I think trying to pick these guys off one by one, while not addressing the reasons many of these guys go down this road, is basically treading water.

I think trying to pick these guys off one by one, while not addressing the reasons many of these guys go down this road, is basically treading water.

Accepting that premise (which I don't at all) your alternate solution would seem to be to quit struggling and drown. Am I missing something?

Well, if Carla's point is that if all we do is hunt down and capture/kill senior jihadist leaders, then that's what we'll still be doing twenty to thirty years from now, I'm in complete agreement. So is GEN John Abizaid, since what I just described comes (almost word for word) from what I've personally heard him tell his staff back in 2003.

That's why that's NOT all we're doing in Afghanistan or Iraq. It might be all you hear about, but take that complaint to the mainstream media. We're absolutely
"addressing the reasons many of these guys go down this road"; it's just not being picked up by the talking heads in the media. But that doesn't mean it's not happening; it just means you don't know about it.