CONFIRMED! Bush Gave Zarqawi A Pass

I have posted previously about how Bush failed to take down Zarqawi before the war when he had the chance and again about his use of Zarqawi for PR purposes.

Now, Michael Scheuer, former head of the CIA's Bin Laden Unit, confirms that Bush passed up the opportunity to take out Zarqawi. Scheuer suggests it was because Bush didn't want to offend the French.

Scheuer is, however, giving the spin he unbdoubtedly heard about Bush's reason not to take out Zarqawi a little too much credence. We were already bombing in Iraq and were doing everything to smear the French publicly for not giving U.S. war plans a blank check. Why would the French give a shit about us blasting Zarqawi? The French were, in fact, very active in assisting us against Al Qaeda and related terrorists. Moreover, are we really to believe that Bush actually was so intent on appeasing the French that he let a known and dangerous terrorist who was openly sympathetic to Al Qaeda have a free pass to kill again?

I still believe the decision had everything to do with allowing the Bushies to continue making the highly misleading but technically accurate argument that Al Qaeda sympathizing terrorists were present in Iraq so as to justify the coming invaision. You simply have to remember how the rightwing blogosphere so fervently bought into this argument and continued to pimp it as a justification for war well after the initial invaision.