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Length:
10:24
MILES O'BRIEN: The most
wanted terrorist in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, is
dead following a U.S. airstrike. Happened about
19-1/2 hours ago, we are told. This occurred after
about a two-week hunt in the general vicinity of
Baquba and a safe house, ultimately, where Zarqawi
and seven aides were found and killed in that U.S.
airstrike.
The intelligence coming from Iraqi residents and
perhaps some Iraqis who were part of the Abu Musab
al-Zarqawi organization, al Qaeda in Iraq.
Joining us now on the line from Brisbane, Australia
is Michael Ware with "Time" magazine, about to join
CNN as a correspondent. He'll be in Baghdad for us
before too long. Michael, you have spent a lot of
time reporting on the insurgency. First of all, just
give us a sense. Are you surprised, given all of the
near misses and reports of his demise that turned out
not to play out, are you surprised they finally got
him?
MICHAEL WARE, JOURNALIST: Well, look, Zarqawi has
been a formidable foe. I mean, I've spoken to men who
hunt him, and one thing they say is that they always
have regard for what they call his tradecraft, his
ability to evade and to hide. He has been very
successful at that.
Yet, nonetheless, it has only been a matter of time.
Intelligence slowly had to be pieced together to
point to something strong against him, and finally it
has. Zarqawi has been playing a dangerous game.
Unlike Osama bin Laden, another significant al-Qaeda
leader, Zarqawi was a man in the field, leading from
the front, so he was always at risk of great
exposure, and it finally caught up with him.
M. O'BRIEN: It's interesting you should say that,
Michael, about his tradecraft, how good he was at
hiding, and yet what we're looking at right now on TV
is video that was released in April, which a lot of
people would have said was kind of a bit of hubris, a
lot of arrogance there, as he was showing off and
talking the terror talk and firing weapons in the
desert. Had he become too arrogant, perhaps?
WARE: Well, there certainly is great debate, even
among the jihad community itself, amongst these
affiliated hard-line groups, about his ego and about
whilst he is charismatic -- does he take it too far.
So, that's always been perhaps his Achilles' heel,
his desire to step out of himself, perhaps a bit too
much. But, I mean, it's been a double-edged sword for
him. Whilst dangerous, that's also been one of his
greatest strengths. It's allowed him to play to his
constituency, to show them that, "yes, I'm out there,
I'm in the field. I'm taunting the Americans." But,
as I said, as a matter of calculation eventually this
all had to catch up with him at some point. Either he
had to trip up or he had to be betrayed somewhere
down the line.
M. O'BRIEN: Give us a sense, then, the insurgency,
the homegrown insurgency in Iraq, certainly exists
apart from Zarqawi in many respects. How does this
impact the army, the troops on the ground, day to
day?
WARE: Well, that's a good question, because you must
bear in mind that Zarqawi's organization, whilst it
was responsible for the most high profile and
horrific attacks that always captured the headlines,
the vast majority of the daily attacks that are just
grinding away at U.S. and Iraqi forces -- the
roadside bombs, the ambushes, the mortars, the
rockets, -- that comes from the homegrown Iraqi
insurgency, drawn from the ranks of Saddam's former
military and intelligence apparatus, and local Iraqi
Islamists. So in terms of the vast majority of the
insurgency, this may in fact embolden them as they
feel that they've now becoming stronger within the
insurgency because Zarqawi always challenged their
authority and perhaps they now feel that they can
stand up and make their mark. But that may yet play
well for America, too.
M. O'BRIEN: What do you mean by that?
WARE: Well, it's been this part of the insurgency --
the former military officers, Iraq's brand of West
Pointer, if you will, who in many ways were allied
with the U.S. military in the 80s, in the Iran-Iraq
War -- that the U.S. military intelligence has been
attempting to reach out to for the past 18 months,
initially with the assistance of Jordanian
intelligence. I mean, these men are fighting what
they consider among themselves a military fight for
political purpose. They've only been fighting to get
to the negotiating table. Zarqawi stood in the way of
that on ideological grounds, so this may allow the
dialogue that's slowly developed between the American
military and this nationalist insurgency to perhaps
now slowly prosper.
M. O'BRIEN: I think a lot of our viewers, Michael,
would be surprised to hear you talk about these
terrorists ultimately wanting to go to a negotiating
table. Do you think that's really a viable prospect?
WARE: Absolutely. I mean, there is more than one war
that is being fought in Iraq right now. I mean, you
have this civil unrest, which is akin to a civil war,
which is one sect against another. You have a
showdown between American might and Iranian might,
with its puppets and allies in the country. Then
you've also had a homegrown war, a war where the men
fighting it see themselves as liberators, fighting to
evict the foreign occupier. And then the smallest of
these wars, yet the most lethal, was Zarqawi's
terrorist war, which just saw Iraq as one part of a
global holy war. So in fact there have been many,
many wars that are being fought by many different
participants for many reasons, and the American
military has conducted dialogue with various elements
of these fighting groups.
M. O'BRIEN: Is it possible, Michael, that there will
be some sort of backlash within the insurgency in an
attempt to rise -- to bring the level of violence to
a higher crescendo in the wake of this?
WARE: Well, they may try to use it that way. I
suspect that it will, for the time being, at least,
disrupt the hard-line al-Qaeda Islamist element.
They'll need to pull back, regroup and reconfigure.
The test now will be to see who or what steps up in
their place. One thing we've noticed over the last
year is that while initially Zarqawi's al-Qaeda group
was dominated by foreigners, these men have slowly,
through the attrition of war, been captured or
killed. Whilst some still remain, we've seen an
Iraqification of Zarqawi's al-Qaeda as Iraqis have
risen up the ranks. We'll now see if these men step
forward or if they choose to move perhaps more
towards the nationalist fight and adopt different
kinds of means, as opposed to the suicide bombings
plunged into queues of civilians lining up for
gasoline or into marketplaces.
M. O'BRIEN: Michael, give us -- as I look through the
list of atrocities and crimes that are linked to
Zarqawi and his organization, it's a pretty amazing
list, and you have to wonder if perhaps too much
credit is given to him and his organization, because
as I look at that list, I am seeing him unable to
fire a machine gun in the desert without some help
from an aide.
WARE: Well, listen, I remember back in the summer of
2003, in the early months of the occupation, I was
there when Zarqawi declared his arrival in the war
with the bombing of the Jordanian embassy. That was
the first kind of event of that size and significance
that had taken place. He then followed that up with
the bombing of the UN and countless other sites
since. We've now seen suicide bombings -- something
that was unknown in Iraq in any kind of conflict --
become a daily phenomenon. I mean, we've seen
Zarqawi's organization on one day in the capital city
alone launch 11 suicide bombers. So, his role in the
number of attacks -- I mean, we're averaging 70 or 80
attacks a day on coalition troops -- his men are
responsible for only a small fraction of those, but
in terms of the inspiration and spreading the terror,
you cannot underestimate his impact. His impact has
been beyond the deeds that his men have done, despite
how many they claim, rightly or wrongly.
M. O'BRIEN: All right, let me ask you kind of a hard
hypothetical here for a moment. If Zarqawi had not
risen to such heights after the invasion by the US --
in other words, if he hadn't played his part in
instigating the insurgency, how would the insurgency
have played out? How would the violence have played
out? Would it have been significantly different than
what we are seeing?
WARE: I think it would have had a markedly different
flavor, certainly an aspect of it. I mean, we
wouldn't have seen that third tier of war, that
al-Qaeda holy war, certainly not to the degree that
Zarqawi took it. I mean, remember, we saw that
intercepted letter from Zarqawi to Osama bin Laden
back in early 2004. I mean, that was essentially
Zarqawi sending Osama a business plan, saying, "here
is this platform. It's the one we've been waiting
for. This is how I plan to use it. Support me, let me
make the jihad here, where it's never existed
before." And, in fact, in that letter Zarqawi
criticized the local Iraqi insurgency and said, "I am
going to instill in them a true sense of jihad." Now,
this was before Zarqawi even enjoined al-Qaeda.
Before Iraq he was a marginal player. He turned Iraq
into his own and he did that by adding his
particularly sinister element to the war, which I
think wouldn't have developed without him, and I
think we would have seen the Ba'athists and the
former Iraqi military of Saddam's era play a much
greater role, and I think this battle would have
evolved in a different way.
M. O'BRIEN: Michael Ware, formerly of "Time"
magazine, joining us from Brisbane. Thank you very
much, Michael.
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Length: 4:50
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN
ANCHOR: These are scenes of joy as they fire guns in
the air and offer a moment of celebration.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki saying very
simply earlier today, "Today Zarqawi has been
terminated." Abu Musab al-Zarqawi dead, killed in an
airstrike by a precision weapon off of what we
believe was a U.S. helicopter. We're going to get
further details from the Pentagon very shortly.
In any case, as details come out about this hunt for
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, we have word that the U.S. was
pretty much hot on his trail within the past couple
of weeks. There may have been another attempt at his
life that failed about 10 days ago. But one of the
keys might have come from Jordan.
Zarqawi, as you know, a Jordanian. And there was a
key arrest in May which might have led to some
intelligence, which ultimately led to this attack.
Joining us on the line right now from Brisbane,
Australia, is Michael Ware -- oh, actually, live from
Brisbane. Michael Ware, formerly with "TIME"
magazine, soon to be with us. Michael, let's talk
about the intelligence which led to this. We're told
that an arrest of a Jordanian who might have had a
close link to Zarqawi might have been an important
part of this, and also there were tips that were
coming from residents on the ground there in Iraq
that were ultimately leading to Zarqawi. Those are
significant points, the fact that he had developed
enemies so close to him.
MICHAEL WARE, BRISBANE, AUSTRALIA: Oh, look, this has
been building for quite some time. I mean, Zarqawi
has been a lightning rod not just within the region,
not just within Iraq and his home country of Jordan,
but even within al-Qaeda and the broader jihad
community. He'd been in the face of a lot of people.
He was very defiant, and he was taking the global
jihad and then al-Qaeda once he joined it to a new,
much more violent, much more brutal threshold. We're
now going to see this is one of the biggest tests of
this new generation of al-Qaeda that has risen with
him harder and meaner as a result of the Iraq
theater, the platform where they came and blooded
themselves.
The fact that there might be some Jordanian
intelligence involvement, that shouldn't come as much
of a surprise. Zarqawi started in Jordan. He found
religion in a Jordanian prison. His mentor was a
prominent Jordanian Islamist. His original group was
primarily dedicated to the overthrow of the Jordanian
regime. And when Zarqawi declared his arrival in the
Iraq war in the summer of 2003, with a truck bombing
of the Jordan embassy, that very much illustrated
Jordan's stake in capturing Zarqawi. So that they may
have helped really comes as no surprise. And we've
also been seeing things turn against Zarqawi to some
degree on the ground, even within the insurgency, as
people have been challenging his role and his
influence. I mean, we've seen that on Ramadi. As
people started to turn against him on the street, he
hit back hard with key assassinations of tribal
leaders. So none of this is a surprise. A lot of
things eventually had to catch up with Abu Musab
al-Zarqawi.
M. O'BRIEN: To say he has blood on his hands is a bit
of an understatement. Literally thousands of people
dead attributed to he and his organization. I want to
read to you a quote from Zalmay Khalilzad, who is the
U.S. ambassador to Iraq. He said this, this morning
at that announcement: "The godfather of sectarian
killing and terror in Iraq is gone. This marks a
great success for Iraq in the global war on terror."
First, that first point, the godfather of sectarian
violence and killing in Iraq, true statement?
WARE: Well, I can very much see where Ambassador
Khalilzad is coming from on that. I mean, let's look
back. From the very beginning, Zarqawi has made it a
centerpiece of his strategy to divide the Sunni and
the Shia sects, to inflame the great sectarian war.
He saw that as a vehicle to advance his hard line.
M. O'BRIEN: Michael, I'm sorry. Michael, we're going
to have to pick this up in just a moment. We have
some breaking news.
M. O'BRIEN: Let's get back to Michael Ware in
Brisbane. We were talking, Michael, about a comment
from Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq,
where he said -- he called al-Zarqawi the godfather
of sectarian killing in Iraq. And you were expounding
on that. Why don't we -- why don't you pick up where
we left off there. Oh, we just lost him. All right.
We're going to take a break. We'll try to get Michael
back. And we'll continue our coverage from all around
the world to keep you up to date on the killing of
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
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Length: 7:22
MILES O'BRIEN: To Michael
Ware, who was the Baghdad bureau chief for quite some
time for "Time" magazine before joining CNN as a
correspondent. And, Michael, I've been reading some
of your work this morning in "Time," and looking at
the history of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and the way he
intersected terror in Afghanistan, made his way out
of Afghanistan into Iran and then ultimately into
Iraq. He has been a player for quite some time,
though not necessarily a household name here in the
United States until fairly recently.
MICHAEL WARE, FMR. BAGHDAD BUREAU CHIEF, "TIME"
MAGAZINE: Yeah, Zarqawi has been around within the
jihad community since the 1990s. But the irony is,
until Iraq, he was a marginal player. It's he who
went to Iraq and said this is the platform where we
can give birth to a new generation of jihadis. And
it's Iraq that made Zarqawi the international jihadi
superfigure that he is. So he benefited enormously
from Iraq, and he created a whole new generation of
al-Qaeda. So this is the first test of that
generation. How do they respond? How do they
replenish? How do they move on? I think we're soon
going to see Iraqis taking much more control of
al-Qaeda in Iraq, something that many have called for
for a long time.
M. O'BRIEN: You know, let's -- going back to talking
about Zarqawi here -- and this is a ninth grade
dropout, by all accounts a thug and a bully, who,
somewhere along the way, was able to memorize the
Koran in its entirety while spending some time in
jail. There's a lot of contradictions in this
character.
WARE: Absolutely. I mean, people said that he was a
petty criminal. And it wasn't until he was put in
jail in Jordan that he found Islam. However, we saw
him pick up a Jordanian militant group, take it over.
It was essentially given to him, and he then
eventually turned it into what we now see as al-Qaeda
in Iraq. But even his old mentor, who is still in
those Jordanian prisons, has been telling him for
years to tone it back, pull back the reins on some of
these more horrific tactics. It's doing more damage
than good. We then started seeing the old guard of
al-Qaeda, Osama and al-Zawahiri, saying the same
things. So he's divided al-Qaeda and the broader
jihad community. And he's taken it to a whole new
more brutal level. Well, now let's see what happens
to those who have been inspired by Zarqawi.
M. O'BRIEN: To what extent was he inspired by Osama
bin Laden? As I understand it, he didn't meet him
until the year 2000, and he didn't at that time, in a
formal sense, join al-Qaeda. As a matter of fact, he
had his own operation running. Was there some sort of
bad blood between the two that ultimately they -- and
ultimately they linked over the subject of Iraq, or
what happened?
WARE: Yeah, there's conflicting reports about this,
but one thing that's very clear is that in
Afghanistan, Zarqawi was operating his own
Jordanian-based organization out of the western city
of Herat. In terms of al-Qaeda itself, pure al-Qaeda,
he was a marginal player. He was not formally a
member of al-Qaeda. It wasn't until he went to Iraq
and said, "here is the place that we make ourselves,
and if you won't do it with me, I'll do it on my
own." Eventually he became such an Internet superstar
among the jihad faithful, among that constituency,
that al-Qaeda was forced to a decision point: do we
take this guy on or do we embrace him and bring him
in? So in October 2004, that's what they did. They
brought him into al-Qaeda. He essentially joined the
chairman of directors. And what many suspect is that
he was looking to take over ultimately. But he
represented a whole new form of al-Qaeda.
M. O'BRIEN: In the sense that, what, that he was more
of a hands-on leader? How was he a new form?
WARE: Well, he was certainly much more of a frontline
leader than, say, Osama bin Laden. Zarqawi was there
at the battlefront. Whether he was pulling triggers
is one question. There's many stories that he, in
fact, has done so. But there he is marshaling the
troops and sending people out, very much involved
there in the battle, unlike others. But also, he
believed much more in the war against the Shia. Now,
this is not something that Osama bin Laden himself
has pushed near so far. He believes in this civil war
in Iraq. He believes in making it spread. It's like
Catholic and Protestant in Iraq. He really set out to
inflame that. The other thing was his methods. He
didn't mind if a busload of schoolchildren were
killed, as long as he still achieved the end that he
wanted, blowing up a few police officers or hitting
an American convoy. For him civilian casualties were
just part of the price. They would go to heaven with
the rest of the martyrs, that will be OK. That was
very divisive, not just among the Iraqi insurgency,
but within al-Qaeda itself.
M. O'BRIEN: Michael, we -- I'm showing you a picture
now. We have no audio whatsoever, unfortunately, from
this briefing. Nobody is getting it. And we're
watching it. What they just showed and just took off
the easel there was a picture of what appeared to be
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, deceased in the wake of this
attack. We're going to try to see if we can get this
technical problem worked out with the pool -- figure
coming in. There you see the tape that came just a
few moments ago. That -- I guess, Michael, putting
that picture out for the world is important, but at
this point, al-Qaeda in Iraq has admitted on their
own Web site that Zarqawi has died. So there's no
debating that at this point.
WARE: Well, from what I've just been told, there's
been at least two postings from his organization
confirming his death, yet vowing to continue with the
plan. So it does seem that not only is the U.S.
military extremely confident -- and we've been down
this road before, both with Zarqawi and previously
with the killing of Saddam's two sons, Uday and
Qusay. Identification is very important. This is a
war of perception. Zarqawi knew that. He always
played that masterfully. So the U.S. military in Iraq
would have been very aware of that, and would make
sure that it's on very sure ground before making this
announcement. So, in many ways, it does seem that the
debate over his identity has been removed, certainly
at this early stage.
M. O'BRIEN: All right. Well, of course, it has been
22 hours since the strike. Michael Ware in Brisbane.
We'll be back with you in a bit.