They Bombed Zarqawi Like Saddam

US airstrike kills Iraq terror chief al-Zarqawi

Given the Americans atrocious history of lack of scoring hits using precision bombing I think the partying over this should wait for the DNA evidence.

How They Got Zarqawi

The terrorist responsible for some of the most gruesome killings in Iraq was killed in a joint U.S.-Iraqi military operation Wednesday, after the U.S. and its allies had finally located him. A well-placed intelligence source in Jordan told TIME that the CIA was tipped off after Jordanian intelligence learned of a meeting that Zarqawi planned to hold in the town of Baquba, north of Baghdad. His safe house was targeted in an air attack, and, says the same source, the Jordanian-born leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq was killed in the bombing.

Remember they claimed they got Saddam and the Bathist leadership in the same kind of hit back in the early days of the war.

Al-Dura Farm, Baghdad

The war opened on March 20 with an attempted attack on Saddam Hussein. This strike was the beginning of a pattern that would be repeated many times. The U.S. military targeted a facility in the mistaken belief that the Iraqi leadership was there; instead of “decapitating” the regime, this strike resulted in fifteen civilian casualties because of faulty intelligence.

A human intelligence source provided the CIA with information on Saddam Hussein’s alleged location at a farm in al-Dura, a district of southeastern Baghdad.⁵⁹ Two F-117A Nighthawk aircraft dropped four EGBU-27 2,000-pound penetrator bombs at 3:15 a.m. on a reported bunker at the farm. Moments later, the rest of the farm was hit with up to forty cruise missiles (Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles, or TLAMs) in an attempt to kill Saddam Hussein.⁶⁰ The U.S. military later acknowledged there was no bunker at the farm, and Saddam Hussein broadcast a television interview days later.⁶¹ The attack resulted in one civilian killed and fourteen wounded, including nine women and a child.⁶²

And the US success at using CIA drones to kill Osama bin Laden well I rest my case.


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