Iraq PM announces Zarqawi killed: state TV

[TRUTH]

Jun 8, 2006 — BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq's Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has announced that al Qaeda's leader in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, has been killed, state television said on Thursday.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=2052094

I hope everyone remembers NOW...that he is dead just incase they bring him back from the dead!!!!

[GEFBASS]

Also read yesterday on Sky News from Saudi Arabia that `Al Qaeda is Defeated` there.

http://www.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30200-1223979,00.html

A good day for the war on terror ? and/or ratings ?....

[flamesong]

Here is a brief rundown of Zarqawi's death's and legs from a fairly unbiased source:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Musab_al-Zarqawi#Reported_missing_leg .2Fdeath

The record of his latest death has already been added.

Notably that the fairly mainstream Wikipedia went a long way to questioning Zarqawi's life/health status until now. It would be interesting to see if the 'known scars' by which his body were identified include an absent leg - which would throw questions in the air about the beheading of Nick Berg.

[Sinclair]

Comment/analysis on the RI Board here

[freddie]

hmmm... killed in an air-raid huh? - What does that promote? - Pulling more troops off the streets and operating the war from the air more? - Seems a nicely timed 'example' of how effective air-strikes can be, don't you think.

[alwun]

Hope I look as good as that after sharing a house with just only a couple of those lively deadly 500lb bombs. However, mind you, he has been rumoured to possess extraordinary powers. Maybe he can single handed and one leggedly even actually save GWB, even after death(although why he should want to, I can't imagine). A picture is sometimes etc. See here:

http://www.hist.umn.edu/~ruggles/Approval.htm

[ian neal]

Given the questions that surround Zarqawi

(See these threads here, here and here,

I couldn't help thinking how incredible it was that having dropped a 500lb bomb on him from a great height (as reported on BBC last night) they were able to pull a slightly bruised but intact body from the carnage and take kis fingerprints.. Hmmm!

This from Greg Palast

They got him -- the big, bad, beheading berserker in Iraq. But, something's gone unreported in all the glee over getting Zarqawi … who invited him into Iraq in the first place?

If you prefer your fairy tales unsoiled by facts, read no further. If you want the uncomfortable truth, begin with this: A phone call to Baghdad to Saddam's Palace on the night of April 21, 2003. It was Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld on a secure line from Washington to General Jay Garner.

The General had arrives in Baghdad just hours before to take charge of the newly occupied nation. The message from Rumsfeld was not a heartwarming welcome. Rummy told Garner, Don't unpack, Jack -- you're fired.

What had Garner done? The many-starred general had been sent by the President himself to take charge of a deeply dangerous mission. Iraq was tense but relatively peaceful. Garner's job was to keep the peace and bring democracy.

Unfortunately for the general, he took the President at his word. But the general was wrong. "Peace" and "Democracy" were the slogans.

"My preference," Garner told me in his understated manner, "was to put the Iraqis in charge as soon as we can and do it in some form of elections."


But elections were not in The Plan.

The Plan was a 101-page document to guide the long-term future of the land we'd just conquered. There was nothing in it about democracy or elections or safety. There was, rather, a detailed schedule for selling off "all [Iraq's] state assets" -- and Iraq, that's just about everything -- "especially," said The Plan, "the oil and supporting industries." Especially the oil.

There was more than oil to sell off. The Plan included the sale of Iraq's banks, and weirdly, changing it's copyright laws and other odd items that made the plan look less like a program for Iraq to get on its feet than a program for corporate looting of the nation's assets. (And indeed, we discovered at BBC, behind many of the odder elements -- copyright and tax code changes -- was the hand of lobbyist Jack Abramoff's associate Grover Norquist.)

But Garner didn't think much of The Plan, he told me when we met a year later in Washington. He had other things on his mind. "You prevent epidemics, you start the food distribution program to prevent famine."

Seizing title and ownership of Iraq's oil fields was not on Garner's must-do list. He let that be known to Washington. "I don't think [Iraqis] need to go by the U.S. plan, I think that what we need to do is set an Iraqi government that represents the freely elected will of the people." He added, "It's their country … their oil."

Apparently, the Secretary of Defense disagreed. So did lobbyist Norquist. And Garner incurred their fury by getting carried away with the "democracy" idea: he called for quick elections -- within 90 days of the taking of Baghdad.

But Garner's 90-days-to-elections commitment ran straight into the oil sell-off program. Annex D of the plan indicated that would take at least 270 days -- at least 9 months.

Worse, Garner was brokering a truce between Sunnis, Shias and Kurds. They were about to begin what Garner called a "Big Tent" meeting to hammer out the details and set the election date. He figured he had 90 days to get it done before the factions started slitting each other's throats.

But a quick election would mean the end of the state-asset sell-off plan: An Iraqi-controlled government would never go along with what would certainly amount to foreign corporations swallowing their entire economy. Especially the oil. Garner had spent years in Iraq, in charge of the Northern Kurdish zone and knew Iraqis well. He was certain that an asset-and-oil grab, "privatizations," would cause a sensitive population to take up the gun. "That's just one fight you don't want to take on right now."

But that's just the fight the neo-cons at Defense wanted. And in Rumsfeld's replacement for Garner, they had a man itching for the fight. Paul Bremer III had no experience on the ground in Iraq, but he had one unbeatable credential that Garner lacked: Bremer had served as Managing Director of Kissinger and Associates.

In April 2003, Bremer instituted democracy Bush style: he canceled elections and appointed the entire government himself. Two months later, Bremer ordered a halt to all municipal elections including the crucial vote to Shia seeking to select a mayor in the city of Najaf. The front-runner, moderate Shia Asad Sultan Abu Gilal warned, "If they don't give us freedom, what will we do? We have patience, but not for long." Local Shias formed the "Mahdi Army," and within a year, provoked by Bremer's shutting their paper, attacked and killed 21 U.S. soldiers.

The insurgency had begun. But Bremer's job was hardly over. There were Sunnis to go after. He issued "Order Number One: De-Ba'athification." In effect, this became "De-Sunni-fication."

Saddam's generals, mostly Sunnis, who had, we learned, secretly collaborated with the US invasion and now expected their reward found themselves hunted and arrested. Falah Aljibury, an Iraqi-born US resident who helped with the pre-invasion brokering, told me, "U.S. forces imprisoned all those we named as political leaders," who stopped Iraq's army from firing on U.S. troops.

Aljibury's main concern was that busting Iraqi collaborators and Ba'athist big shots was a gift "to the Wahabis," by which he meant the foreign insurgents, who now gained experienced military commanders, Sunnis, who now had no choice but to fight the US-installed regime or face arrest, ruin or death. They would soon link up with the Sunni-defending Wahabi, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who was committed to destroying "Shia snakes."

And the oil fields? It was, Aljibury noted, when word got out about the plans to sell off the oil fields (thanks to loose lips of the US-appointed oil minister) that pipelines began to blow. Although he had been at the center of planning for invasion, Aljibury now saw the greed-crazed grab for the oil fields as the fuel for a civil war that would rip his country to pieces:

"Insurgents," he said, "and those who wanted to destabilize a new Iraq have used this as means of saying, 'Look, you're losing your country. You’re losing your leadership. You're losing all of your resources to a bunch of wealthy people. A bunch of billionaires in the world want to take you over and make your life miserable.' And we saw an increase in the bombing of oil facilities, pipelines, of course, built on -- built on the premise that privatization [of oil] is coming."

General Garner, watching the insurgency unfold from the occupation authority's provocations, told me, in his understated manner, "I'm a believer that you don't want to end the day with more enemies than you started with."

But you can't have a war president without a war. And you can't have a war without enemies. "Bring 'em on," our Commander-in-Chief said. And Zarqawi answered the call.


**********

[andyb]

This made my blood boil on the way into work this morning. On the front page of the Metro a quote from our friend Mr Rumsfeld.

'Arguably, over the last few years, no single person on this planet has had the blood of more innocent men, women and children on his hands than Zarqawi'

I suppose he did say 'arguably'

[Annie]

The following was sent to me by Scholars for Truth.

Annie


"In May 2004, a videotape was released showing a group of five men
beheading American Nicholas Berg, who had been abducted and taken hostage
in Iraq weeks earlier. The speaker on the tape, wielding the knife that
killed Berg, was said by the CIA to be al-Zarqawi.

The CIA analysis failed to quell doubts about the validity of the claim
because, among other reasons, the man wears a mask in the video and did
not resemble Zarqawi in other ways. (see the article below from The
Sydney Morning Herald.)

Various middle east correspondents/experts including CNN's Octavia Nasr
have stated that the person talking on the Berg tape was not al-Zarqawi
because he didn't speak with a Jordanian accent.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zarqawi

----------

Who killed Nick Berg?

Sydney Morning Herald. May 29th 2004

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/05/28/1085641717320.html

“Yet a leaflet recently circulated in Falluja, by no means a reliable
source, claims that al-Zarqawi was killed in the Sulaimaniya mountains
of northern Iraq during a US bombing. A US military report last month
has claimed al-Zarqawi was killed in the bombing of Falluja.

Also, the US Secretary of State, Colin Powell, has said that al-Zarqawi
was fitted with a prosthetic leg in a Baghdad hospital, yet the tape
shows no evidence of a limp. CNN staff familiar with al-Zarqawi's voice
have been quoted as saying the voice does not sound like his”.

----------

How many times have the US already claimed that al-Zarqawi has been
killed? Is this the third?

Have we any reason to suggest that today’s announcement is also a
fruad? See WMR below.

Could this be a manipulation of the media cycle to cover up another
pending story? WMR See below.

----------

June 8, 2006 -- Jordanian Al Qaeda leader Abu Musab al Zarqawi, born
Fadel Nazzal al-Khalayleh, was killed in a U.S. air strike last night at
6:15 pm (Iraq time) in an Al Qaeda safe house north of Baghdad. Killed
with Zarqawi were his "spiritual adviser" Sheikh Abdul Rahman, and an
unidentified woman and child. Eight to ten other Zarqawi lieutenants
were also reported to have been killed in the attack.

A U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad this morning stated at a news
conference that Zarqawi was identified based on fingerprints, facial
recognition, known scars, and tattoos. The attack on Zarqawi was apparently
carried out in close coordination with Jordan's General Intelligence
Department, which had received a tip on Zarqawi's location from its agents
operating inside Iraq.

The U.S. military spokesman's revelation that Zarqawi's body was partly
identified from tattoos is noteworthy. Abu Abdel-Rahman al-Iraqi,
described as the Deputy Emir of Al Qaeda in Iraq on an Al Qaeda web site,
stated that Zarqawi was a martyred mujahed sheikh. Zarqawi was a
lieutenant of strict Wahhabi Islam adherent Osama Bin Laden. However, why
Zarqawi would have had tattoos is baffling. Islam specifically forbids
tattoos. According to Islamic texts, the Prophet Mohammed forbade tattooing:

Narrated Abu Huraira: "Allah's Apostle said, 'The evil eye is a fact,'
and he forbade tattooing. (Translation of Sahih Bukhari, Dress, Volume
7, Book 72, Number 827)"

Narrated 'Aun bin Abu Juhaifa: "My father bought a slave who practiced
the profession of cupping. (My father broke the slave's instruments of
cupping). I asked my father why he had done so. He replied, 'The
Prophet forbade the acceptance of the price of a dog or blood, and also
forbade the profession of tattooing, getting tattooed and receiving or
giving Riba, (usury), and cursed the picture-makers.' (Translation of Sahih
Bukhari, Sales and Trade, Volume 3, Book 34, Number 299)"

Narrated 'Abdullah: "Allah has cursed those women who practice
tattooing and those who get themselves tattooed, and those who remove their
face hairs, and those who create a space between their teeth artificially
to look beautiful [hmmm.., ed. note], and such women as change the
features created by Allah. Why then should I not curse those whom the
Prophet has cursed? And that is in Allah's Book. i.e. His Saying: 'And what
the Apostle gives you take it and what he forbids you abstain (from
it).' (59.7) (Translation of Sahih Bukhari, Dress, Volume 7, Book 72,
Number 815)"

The Pentagon has been caught trying to exaggerate the importance of
Zarqawi in propaganda disseminated in Iraq and the United States. Now, a
Pentagon spokesman is claiming that a strict adherent of Islam and a
jihadist was identified through examination of his tattoos. It has
previously been reported that Zarqawi once removed a single tattoo from his
forearm with hydrochloric acid. Other reports said that Zarqawi was once
nicknamed the "green man" because he had as many tattoos as a carnival
worker. The U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad clearly stated the
Zarqawi body found after the U.S. air strike had been identified from
"tattoos." The tattoos are as baffling as the gold ring worn by someone said
to be Zarqawi in the video of the gruesome beheading of Nick Berg. The
Quran forbids Muslim men from wearing jewelry, specifically gold and
silver. Also, the gold ring was on "Zarqawi's" left hand, the unclean
hand used for going to the toilet. Also, the U.S. military made no mention
of Zarqawi's prosthesis device. It has been reported that Zarqawi lost
his leg during a battle in Afghanistan.

June 8, 2006 -- The story about Laura Bush and her marital problems
with George W. Bush and Mr. Bush's reported extramarital affair with
Condoleezza Rice is not going away. The alternative media continues to write
and talk about this story. With the killing of Zarqawi in Iraq, the
mainstream media now has a reason to avoid the Bush infidelity story
entirely. The Zarqawi story came at an opportune time for Messrs. Bush and
Rove. Some mainstream media reporters were beginning to look into the
Bush marital issues the same day the attack came on the Al Qaeda safe
house in Iraq.

----------

Who killed Nick Berg?

Sydney Morning Herald. May 29th 2004

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/05/28/1085641717320.html

Conspiracy theories about how the kidnapped American died in Iraq are
flying around the world. Richard Neville explores the explanations.

Iraq in flames, Washington an object of disgust. What to do? At this
pivotal moment, CNN and Fox News are tipped off to a clip of an American
citizen being beheaded. The victim is a 26-year-old idealist from
Pennsylvania, Nick Berg. Despite the perpetrators being masked, the vile
deed is deemed the work of al-Qaeda.

The clip was first "discovered" on an Islamic website in Malaysia. Its
Arabic title reads "Abu Musab al-Zarqawi shown slaughtering an
American". al-Zarqawi is a 38-year-old Jordanian militant who fled to Iraq in
2001 after reportedly losing a leg in a US missile strike. al-Zarqawi's
face is widely known and he credits himself with the deed, so why a
mask?

The timing of the video was brilliant for the West. Media pundits
judged the crime a deeper evil than the systemic torture of innocent Iraqis.
But some people sensed a rat. But if it was not al-Qaeda, who? Surely
not Uncle Sam. That's too dark, even for the CIA.

While this video shows a human body having its head chopped off, it
does not necessarily portray an act of murder. Berg's headless body was
found dumped on a Baghdad roadside on Saturday, May 8.

Three days later, the "live beheading" clip was uploaded from London to
the Malaysian website http://www.al-ansar.biz. The statement in the
video is signed with al-Zarqawi's name, dated May 11. After Fox News and
CNN had downloaded the video, it disappeared from the site.

As no autopsy is available, little is known about the state of the
body. No time of death, no forensic analysis. On April 6, a month before
the discovery of the corpse, Berg had been released from custody. But
whose custody?

Dan Senor, adviser to the US Presidential Envoy in Iraq, has said Berg
was never held by the Americans. Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt, the
Coalition's deputy head of operations, claimed he was in the custody of
Iraqi police from March 24 to April 6. However, the Iraqi police chief,
Major-General Mohammed Khair al-Barhawi, told Associated Press "the
Iraqi police never arrested the slain American".

Berg's family are certain his jailers were the US military. His father,
Michael, had been told so by the FBI. He has produced an email from a
US consular official in Baghdad, Beth Payne, confirming that his son was
in the hands of the US. (Later, another official said this was an
error.) On April 5 in the Philadelphia office of the US Supreme Court, the
Berg family had launched an action against the US military for false
imprisonment. The following day, Berg was released.

The issue of custody is significant; in his final moments on screen
Berg is wearing an orange jumpsuit of the kind familiar from Guantanamo
Bay. The official reasons for Berg's arrest were "lack of documentation"
and "suspicious activities". He carried sensitive electronic equipment
for which he lacked documents. In custody, he was visited three times
by the FBI. Such interviews are bound to have been recorded but no
transcripts have been produced.

After his release, Berg travelled to Baghdad and the $30-a-night
Al-Fanar Hotel. A fellow hotel guest told Newsday that Berg recounted how
Iraqi police had quickly handed him to US authorities in Mosul and that he
had been held the entire time in a jail where his guards were US
soldiers.

Berg was in Baghdad to win contracts for his family firm, Prometheus
Methods Tower Service, a provider of communications facilities. He often
"worked at night on a tower in the neighbourhood of Abu Ghraib",
according to The New York Times.

The family last heard from him on April 9, when he said he was planning
to leave Iraq via Kuwait as soon as it was safe. Berg was last seen
walking with his bags the following day, apparently hoping to find his way
through the turmoil engulfing the city and make it to the border.

On March 7, 2004, two weeks before his arrest in Mosul, an "enemies
list" had been posted on a conservative website, FreeRepublic.com. The
list was compiled from signatories to an anti-war petition, and its
implied purpose was to encourage readers to harass those it named.

Berg's father was on that list, as was the family firm, Prometheus.
This information may well have triggered the arrest of Berg in Iraq.
Berg's politics are not clear. His father, Michael, has described his
son as a "staunch supporter" of US President George Bush.

Friends said Nick believed he could help rebuild Iraq "one radio tower
at a time". According to The New York Times, he was attracted to the
Hebrew concept of tikkun olam - healing the world through social action.

The first few seconds of the video shows Berg sitting on a white
plastic chair in an orange jumpsuit. He speaks directly to the camera in a
relaxed way: "My name is Nick Berg ... I have a brother and sister, David
and Sara. I live in Philadelphia." His white chair is identical to
those in the photographs of the Abu Ghraib prison tortures, but such chairs
are probably common in Iraq. It is highly likely that this segment is
edited from the interrogation of Berg during his 13 days of custody.

In the next scene, Berg is sitting on the floor with five masked
figures standing behind him. We do not see the figures enter. Berg looks
lifeless, though his body appears to make slight movements. A man reads a
lengthy Arabic statement in a passionless monotone. He is identified as
"Abu Musab al-Zarqawi", a Jordanian associate of Osama bin Laden who is
tied to dozens of terrorist acts.

Yet a leaflet recently circulated in Falluja, by no means a reliable
source, claims that al-Zarqawi was killed in the Sulaimaniya mountains of
northern Iraq during a US bombing. A US military report last month has
claimed al-Zarqawi was killed in the bombing of Falluja.

Also, the US Secretary of State, Colin Powell, has said that al-Zarqawi
was fitted with a prosthetic leg in a Baghdad hospital, yet the tape
shows no evidence of a limp. CNN staff familiar with al-Zarqawi's voice
have been quoted as saying the voice does not sound like his.

Among the many curiosities raised on the web about the fanatical five
are:

• They are well-fed, fidgety, and reveal glimpses of white skin.
• Their Arabic is heavily accented (Russian, Jordanian, Egyptian).
• An aside in Russian had been translated as "do it quickly".
• One character wears wears bulky white tennis shoes.
• The man on the far left stands in the familiar "at ease" military
posture.
• The men's scarves are worn and tied by people who "haven't a clue",
says conspiracy theorist Hector Carreon, like actors in Hollywood
movies.
• There is even a voice at the end that seems to ask in English, "How
will it be done?"

[http://www.aztlan.net/nick_berg_how_done.htm]

None of this proves a grand conspiracy, but it does raise questions. In
the final segment of the tape, Berg is thrown to the ground, but
doesn't move. During the decapitation, starting at the front of the throat,
there is little sign of blood. The scream is wildly out of sync, sounds
female, and is obviously dubbed.

Dr John Simpson, executive director for surgical affairs at the Royal
Australasian College of Surgeons, told Ritt Goldstein of the Asia Times,
"I would have thought that all the people in the vicinity would have
been covered in blood, in a matter of seconds ... if it [the video] was
genuine".

Simpson agrees with other experts who find it highly probable that Berg
had died before his decapitation.

But there is still the problem of Berg's slight body movements while
sitting on the floor, before the beheading. According to a blogger
(internet diarist), Nick Possum, "this footage was subsequently modified
frame by frame to make Berg's body move very occasionally". Apparently,
this can be achieved with "commonly available software".

[http://www.brushtail.com.au/nick_berg_hypothesis.html]

Possum believes "the available evidence surrounding the case suggests
that it was a 'black operation' by US psychological warfare specialists
... to provide the media with a moral relativity argument to counter
the adverse publicity over torture at Abu Ghraib". The use of FBI footage
in the opening sequence, if confirmed, suggests the involvement of
high-level US Government operatives.

I do not know who killed Nick Berg, or how he died. But there's
something fishy about this video. In the end, the question is: who killed Nick
Berg, and why?

[dry kleaner]

Lets not forget this same media told us that the war on Iraq was about WMD's and then has changed its mind ever since.

Peace and love

DK