March 9, 2004
He's Everywhere; He's Nowhere The Zarqawi Gambit, Part 2 By GREG WEIHER
Zarqawi is everywhere, and he is responsible for everything.
That's what an unwary reader might conclude from news coverage over the last several weeks.
"Abu Musab Zarqawi blamed for more than 700 killings in Iraq" (NBC News, 03/03/04).
"Zarqawi has warned of attacks on the majority Shia population with the aim of provoking a Sunni-Shia civil war to wreck the US plans to pull out of Iraq on 30 June" (Independent of London 03/03/04).
"Gen. John P. Abizaid said raids by American Special Operations forces and efforts by the Iraqi police against militants associated with Abu Musab al-Zarqawi had thwarted a major attack in Basra" (New York Times 03/03/04).
"There is growing evidence that a terrorist [Zarqawi] with ties to al Qaeda was behind this week's bombing in Iraq" (Christian Broadcasting Network 03/04/04).
"Every soldier in Iraq is looking for Zarqawi," says Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt (Houston Chronicle 02/22/04).
You generally have to get well into these articles to find any qualification of these bold claims. But the disclaimers are puzzlingly blunt given the flamboyant prose that precedes them.
Under the headline, "New leading terrorist a master of disguises, thought to be recruiting for al-Qaida," the Knight-Ridder papers eventually note the following: "So far, coalition officials have presented little hard evidence to back their allegations," and "So far, little evidence has been produced regarding Zarqawi's activities, so it is not clear how firm the allegations are," (Houston Chronicle, 02/22/04