This Can't Be True Now, Can It?

Inflate al-Zarqawi's importance for political reasons? Nah, they'd never do that.

The US military is exaggerating the role of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, possibly to help tie the war to the group blamed for the September 11, 2001 attacks, The Washington Post reported.

Citing internal military documents and unnamed officers, the Post said Zarqawi's profile had been raised in a way that some military intelligence officials believe may have overstated his importance.

...

Although Zarqawi and other foreign insurgents have conducted deadly bombing attacks, they remain "a very small part of the actual numbers," the paper quoted Colonel Derek Harvey, who served as a military intelligence officer in Iraq, as telling an army meeting at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, last summer.

Of course there's always this where I posted about al-Zarqawi's demotion.

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