Zarqawi wasn't killed today in the bombing

He died AFTER the US turned him over to the Iraqis. He died while in Iraqi Custody.


According to this Reuters report he was injured when the US found him. Then we turned the most dangerous mastermind terrorist in Iraq over to Iraqi custody, while he was still alive!

WTF! Why did we turn him over to anyone? Why on earth would we release a mortally wounded high value prisoner to the incompetent Iraqis? I guess BushCo only wants 'em dead, rather then alive. Who needs all that valuable information we could have tortured out of him if we kept him alive?


Jun 8, 2006 8:52 AM BST169

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The al Qaeda leader in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, was killed in a joint attack by U.S. helicopters and Iraqi forces, ABC news reported on Thursday.

It said U.S. helicopters hit a house near Baquba, 40 miles (65 km) north of Baghdad, at 6 p.m. local time on Wednesday.

"Zarqawi was apparently injured at first... The Americans found him. They handed him over to the Iraqis and he later died of his injuries," ABC said.

Six people, including a woman and a child, were killed in the house but only Zarqawi and Abdul-Rahman have been identified. Zarqawi was identified by his fingerprints and tattoos. A further DNA test was being carried out on Zarqawi.

http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2006-06-08T075226Z_01_GEO825572_RTRUKOC_0_UK-IRAQ-ZARQAWI.xml

we attempted to administer medical treatment.

If we capture someone who is mortally injured, is it then our responsibility to try to keep that person alive. He obviously was in no condition to be transferred anywhere other then to the nearest medical facility.

That's good enough for me.

And, let's face it, he's no Saddam - who is even more high-profile.

Anything they say as a result of torture is suspect, because you never know if they're saying it because it's what they think you want to hear.

Redstone

It was a sarcastic remark in reference to BushCo's record of torture.

..when these stories break the reporting is often sketchy or outright wrong. The media run with what they think is accurate, even if they don't have the entire story nailed down yet.

"Zarqawi was apparently injured at first"

The operative word being 'apparently'.

Just because this might have been what was reported first by ABC doesn't mean it was accurate.

Your posting this as if this Reuters wire report was the final word. I have seen absolutely no offical report that suggests Zarqawi actually died while in Iraqi custody.

I'd bet your posting outdated, inaccurate information.

What part of the fog of war and the need to be the first to report leads you to believe the initial report must be true and all subsequent report erroneous? Did Rove's indictment happen a couple weeks ago? Did Dewey win?

...this was probably an early wire report that was sketchy at best.

that all said he was captured by the Kurds who then turned him over to the US.

Then we changed it to claim that the US found him in his hidey hole. Of course, we wouldn't stage a photo op of someone's capture, now would we?

The Pentagon spokesman is on CNN now admitting he was still alive.

"The Pentagon spokesman is on CNN now admitting he was still alive."

only because they can no longer hide this fact.

He was still alive because he was not on the receiving end of 2 500lbs bombs
anyone who thinks he was has an open invitation to come stand within the vicinity of
said bombs you do not have to stand at point of impact you can stand somewhere in the kill zone
and see what happens to your body.

It never fails to amaze me the bullshit Americans will swallow as long as it comes from
"official" sources.

I choose to believe the opposite. I think he was already dead, and the Iraqis turned him over to the U.S.

I'm glad he's dead.

But what if they had three previous chances to take him out but passed them up for political reasons?

What if the team who took him out were reassigned from the hunt for bin Laden?

What if they had a chance to arrest him and extract more intelligence from him?

It pays to look into things a little more deeply sometimes.

in the U.S. Sure took the U.S. long enough to get the word out. They acted like bush got the news much later in the day. Maybe verifying the guy took some time.

newspaper for eight of 12 years reporting, I've seen a lot of dead bodies.

No way he died Wednesday - he's too bloated for that, even in the Iraqi heat.

He looks to have been dead about three days.

One looks like 7 12:3

The other looks like 7 8:17 PM


I would guess the 7 = 7th day of June?

Maybe the seventh day of the first time he died. ;)

Maybe he didn't die immediately.

A person doesn't swell from injury if they're dead - their nerve endings (which causes swelling) will no longer reponsd to stimuli; thus, no swelling as a result of injury.

Was anyone ever brought in in that period dead from concussive effects of several hundred pounds of high explosives detonating nearby?

Among the effects of this means of death is the liberating of a good deal of fluids from various ruptured tissues....

I thought Islam forbade tattoos.

Anyone know any better?

bin Laden didn't like that Zarqawi had a tattoo.


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=1387710&mesg_id=1387710

questionable that he could have been identified by them. Thanks to DUer 'parasim' who posted this in another thread:


Tattoos

Zarqawi's body was taken to a secure location.

"By visual identification it was established that that probably was him, but they... did further examination of his body, found more scars and tattoos consistent with what had been reported which we knew about him.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5060468.stm


...but last year the Guardian reported:


He forbade other prisoners to read anything else. He had his un-Islamic tattoos removed (shedding the last reminders of his old street life).


http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1494965,00....

Somehow, it doesn't seem right to view him as a mainstream Muslim.

Remember, too, weren't there reports of the 9/11 highjackers being seen in some Las Vegas clubs that would have been a no-no in the Islamic faith?? Kind of like chimp and his Christian extremists claiming to be Christians as they run **their** regime (screwing the poor, killing, invading a country, etc..).

Catholics are forbidden to use birth control, they don't. Ahmed Fadeel al-Khalayleh (Zarqawi's real name) grew up in a relatively non-observant family in a gritty industrial town in Jordan. Evidently he was a bruiser and drinker in his youth. His devotion to Jihad and his twisted form of Islam didn't develop until he was in his mid-twenties.

From: http://www.medialens.org/board/

Burying embarrassing news, the Zarqawi way?

There should be mass celebration today in Iraq, and in the press, and by mongers everywhere, for today was the day that Iraq's new Prime Minister Nouri Maliki finally filled the three vacant ministerial posts in his new, and now complete, government. By sheer coincidence this heartening story has been blasted off the front page by the announcement, on the same day, of the killing of the terrorist Zarqawi, which took place yesterday.

Then again, looking at the newly appointed ministers, perhaps it wasn't so unfortunate:

Defense Minister
Abdul Qadir Obeidi - one of Saddam Hussein's generals

Interior Minister
Jawad al-Bulani, an aide to the Governing Council from the Iraqi Hizbollah party

National Security Minister
Shirwan Waili - a former military officer under Saddam Hussein

*****

Here's how the prospects of appointing these guys looked two days ago: http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/editorial/14756538.htm

The delay in forming this government has sparked the worst chaos in Baghdad since Saddam Hussein fell. So delegates were eager for Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to keep his pledge to name the ministers of interior and defense. Those ministers are essential to restoring some security to Iraq. Suddenly a buzz rippled through the hall. The session had been canceled. Squabbles among fellow Shiites over who should get the ministries had prevented Maliki from keeping his promise. That day painted a stark picture of the challenges confronting this national unity government, on which Iraqi and U.S. hopes hang. Rather than bring Iraqis together, this government has reflected Iraq's fragmentation. The situation may be salvaged, but it will take determined leadership from a handful of key Iraqi politicians, as well as from the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad.

Maliki tried from the start to act like a leader. He promised a new plan to secure Baghdad and flew to the key oil city of Basra to try to halt wars between Shiite militias and gangs. He made the pledge to name the ministers. But Iraq's new constitution keeps the prime minister impossibly weak - a reaction to the Hussein dictatorship. And the Iraqi political culture ties him in knots.

...

This system has made many Iraqis sour on democracy quickly. They are hungry for strong leadership. Over and over, I've heard Iraqis say Hussein could have restored order in two weeks. This is why it is so crucial for Maliki to be able to act as a national leader who stands above the interests of sectarian parties. ... It is unclear how or if that can be done. But the prospects for Iraq and for U.S. troop withdrawals depend on whether Maliki can lead.

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi briefly survived the bomb attack that ultimately killed him Wednesday night, a military spokesman said today, saying he was seen to turn away and mumble when American troops approached.

Gen. William B. Caldwell, a spokesman for the military in Baghdad, said in a televised briefing that military personnel attempted to give Mr. Zarqawi medical care, "but he died almost immediately thereafter."

Iraqi and American officials moved today to capitalize on the sense of momentum created by the killing of Mr. Zarqawi, Al Qaeda's leader in Iraq and the country's most wanted man, along with the completion on Thursday of the cabinet of Iraq's new prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki.

When Mr. Zarqawi's death was first announced on Thursday, officials sought to mute any sense of triumph. Today, they continued to emphasize the challenges ahead, but placed greater emphasis on what Mr. Maliki called "additional momentum."


http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/09/world/middleeast/09cnd-iraq.html?hp&ex=1149912000&en=516f45a891d97555&ei=5094&partner=homepage


Seems this is no longer speculation?

And it appears this story could be closer to the truth than the White House version. U.S. Helicopters and Iraqi forces were the first reports. Like someone else on this site mentioned, the U.S. took a perfectly good event to bolster our prestige and we appear to be blowing it through incompetent reporting and possibly covering up something. Sheesh! Thanks for posting this story DoYouEverWonder! I'm kicking it.

they were securing him to a stretcher.

:nuke:

By Joe's (sort of) government, and by the media in Joe's own country?

Joe must feel something, if indeed Joe gives a rip. :shrug:

It's not the content of the story, it's how and who's delivering it, and to what purpose.

The first time you hear about a major event never gives you a complete or even accurate picture of what actually happened.

Remember when President Reagan was shot? A coworker and I were listening to the radio when the report first came out. We took a long lunch break, sitting in his car listening to the reports unfold. There must have been five or six completely different, often contradictory reports within the first 60 minutes. And that was something that happened right in front of the press cameras, here in the USA. The killing of AZ was a military action done under cover of darkness. It's no surprise that the details have been slow to emerge and the story has appeared to change as details are revealed.

Color me unimpressed.

In case you haven't been paying attention, this whole Zarqawi media hype is from the same playbook as in 2004, when the Chimp was down in poll numbers.

Instead of raising the Homeland Security color to orange or red (and thus giving suckers a reason to think Bush was "on the job"), this typical fake story is hellbent on changing the headlines from Haditha and other failures of the war and back to "the War on Terror".

Just in time for the weekend news blather shows...

The timing is too obvious. A couple months from now, this story will be debunked. I'll bet money on it.

for how many days before Zarqawi rises from the dead?

I doubt they will use Zarqawi for anything for at least....until around 2008.

Chimpy might use the Osama Capture Card by around late October because he knows he will he impeached otherwise. Even the Diebold machines won't be able to handle the overwhelming proof that people are sick of Repugs....

OK, I'm dreaming again.

This was all very carefully staged I'm sure.

Now the Iraqi's are neatly split down the middle, Sunni against Shiite, and they can get their civil war started.

Now neo-cons can just stand there and act faux-surprised and say, "See? We can't send our troops home now. Not until law and order is restored."

And on and on it goes...

on his left cheek looked a lot like the butt of a rifle.
If he is dead he can't talk about any past connection with the CIA, etc.

They're saying that there were possibly three women, rather than one woman and a child, as was originally reported. Why would they say "possibly" unless the remains are unidentifiable?

Wonder what excuse they'll come up with the next time they decide to blow up civilian houses, now that they've given up the ghost of Zarqawi? Anyone know the total count of innocent deaths during all the "strikes" they've made, claiming they were after him?