Freedom's Fidelity

Tuesday, June 15, 2004

A New Zarqawi Memo?

Several news organizations are reporting a new Zarqawi letter today, but as I read their accounts this morning I was struck by a sense of deja vu. So I went back and re-read my post from early March on this. The words are a bit different but the sentiments are nearly indentical. I was going to do a comparison but L.T. Smash beat me to it, and it is better than what I would have come up with so I will use his:

In the "new" memo, Zarqawi complains that the Coalition and Iraqi police are making movement difficult:

The space of movement is starting to get smaller. The grip is starting to be tightened on the holy warriors' necks and, with the spread of soldiers and police, the future is becoming frightening.

And in the February Zarqawi memo:

There is no doubt that our field of movement is shrinking and the grip around the throat of the Mujahidin has begun to tighten. With the spread of the army and police, our future is becoming frightening.

The "new" memo mentions a mysterious four-month timeline, before the formation of a "promised Iraqi government."

The statement says the militant movement in Iraq is racing against time to form battalions that can take control of the country "four months before the formation of the promised Iraqi government, hoping to spoil their plan."

From the Zarqawi memo, captured four months ago:

The zero-hour needs to be at least four months before the new government gets in place. As we see we are racing time, and if we succeed, which we are hoping, we will turn the tables on them and thwart their plan.

And that's just some of it, follow the above link for more, it's pretty thorough. There really can be no doubt that it is the same letter, only a different person translated it. How could so much of the media miss this? Why was this given so little coverage when the memo was originally discovered by the CPA in February? Because the February letter came from U.S. sources and today's came from an Islamic website? Nahhhhh, couldn't be, right?

In any case, this is a good time to revisit the contents of that letter, and how it laid out the plan for creating chaos in Iraq by fomenting civil war, in hopes of driving out the United States and any chance for a liberal democracy to gain traction. As the letter noted then, the terrorists are failing. That is still the case, but times are increasingly desperate for those that seek prevent a peaceful and prosperours Iraq. Re-read the whole thing.

posted by Paul  permalink | |