The risks of raising hopes
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,1797761,00.html
Bush's surprise visit to Baghdad on Tuesday was Mission Accomplished in
a business suit
Sidney Blumenthal
Thursday June 15, 2006
The Guardian
Months before an air strike killed Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, US military
commanders and intelligence officers in Iraq tried to persuade the
office of the defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, and the White House
to "degrade" his inflated image; they resisted, ultimately for
"domestic political reasons", as a military source told me.
President Bush's statement a week ago said Zarqawi was "the operational
commander of the terrorist movement in Iraq", and that his death the
night before was "a severe blow to al-Qaida", but added that "we can
expect the terrorists and insurgents to carry on without him".
Superficially sober, Bush's remarks conflated the lone wolf Zarqawi
with al-Qaida, though Zarqawi had taken on the al-Qaida label as
self-proclaimed grandiosity and the al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri
had denounced him, and with the entire Sunni insurgency, with which
Zarqawi had been in conflict.
Mission Accomplished
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.atheism/msg/6b38fd160ad0d467
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