Reply #56: Zarqawi is Kaiser Soze. [View All]

From The Seattle Times

Documents raise doubt about Iraq terrorist's importance

By Thomas E. Ricks
The Washington Post

"Although al-Zarqawi and other foreign insurgents in Iraq have conducted deadly bomb attacks, they remain "a very small part of the actual numbers," Col. Derek Harvey, who served as a military-intelligence officer in Iraq and then was one of the top officers handling Iraq intelligence issues for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told an Army meeting at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., last summer.

In a transcript of the meeting, Harvey said, "Our own focus on al-Zarqawi has enlarged his caricature, if you will — made him more important than he really is, in some ways.""

<snip>

"The military's propaganda program largely has been aimed at Iraqis but seems to have spilled over into the U.S. media. One briefing slide about U.S. "strategic communications" in Iraq, prepared for Army Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the top U.S. commander in Iraq, describes the "home audience" as one of six major targets of the American side of the war."

<snip>

"The al-Zarqawi campaign is discussed in several internal military documents. "Villainize al-Zarqawi/leverage xenophobia response," one U.S. military briefing from 2004 stated. The methods listed included "Media operations" and "PSYOP.""


Additional sources:

http://today.reuters.com/news/CrisesArticle.aspx?storyId=L10600399

WaPo, which requires resistration. Use the topmost one from www.bugmenot.com:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/09/AR2006040900890_pf.html

Dan is right. Zarqawi is a myth.

Edit: code.