Bad week for both Zarkawi and dems

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A bad week for Zarqawi

ABU Musab al Zarqawi, the al-Qaeda chieftain in Iraq, had a bad week this month.

It would have been a really, really bad week if Zarqawi had been among the seven al-Qaeda leaders killed in Mosul Nov. 19. But even though he got away again, he had a rotten week.

That was also a bad week for anti-war Democrats, who had their bluff called in the House of Representatives.

Zarqawi's bad week was a product of the suicide bombings he orchestrated Nov. 9 against three hotels in Amman, Jordan. The bombings resulted in 62 deaths, mostly of Arabs attending a wedding.

Because of its large Palestinian population, Jordan had been the country most supportive of al-Qaeda.

No longer. On Nov. 18, more than 200,000 Jordanians took to the streets to demonstrate against al-Qaeda. Zarqawi is Jordanian, but his tribe has disowned him.

This is a big deal, said James S. Robbins, who teaches at the National Defense University in Washington D.C:

"One of the reasons I thought the report of Zarqawi's death was credible at first was that his tribe had forsaken him," Mr. Robbins wrote in his National Review Online column. "Extended tribal ties among groups in al Anbar province in Iraq may be what has kept him safe thus far."

It could have been a tip from a disgruntled relative that led U.S. and Iraqi troops to surround the house in Mosul where seven men and a woman died, several by blowing themselves up. More likely, they were ratted out by Iraqis who had once been friendly to al-Qaeda, but are turning against it.

There has been a surge in tips from Iraqis over the last month, a U.S. intelligence officer told the Washington Post. "These tend to be traditional Iraqi leaders - sheiks and imams - upset with the organization, especially its recent execution of Sunni Arabs in Ramadi," the official said.

Ramadi, the capital of al Anbar province, is a smuggling center that long has been as lawless as Dodge City before Wyatt Earp became marshal. There have been running gun battles between local insurgents tied to the former regime of Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda. There also have been gun battles between al-Qaeda and U.S. troops in Ramadi, which have gone badly for al-Qaeda.

More than 200 "insurgents," most of them al-Qaeda members, have been killed or captured in Operation Steel Curtain, a joint Marine-Iraqi operation just concluded, which had been cleaning out hideouts along the Syrian border.

Zarqawi has lost a number of key lieutenants in recent weeks, thanks to the increasing number and timeliness of tips. The most recent were Abu Ahmed, the "Emir" of Sadah, nabbed on day three of Steel Curtain, and Abu Ibrahim, a technology expert who manufactured triggering devices for roadside bombs, taken in Baghdad Oct. 31.

More of Zarqawi's command network was lost in the house in Mosul, even if he himself got away.

With the walls falling in on al-Qaeda in Iraq, it would seem a curious time for congressional Democrats to go into pre-emptive surrender mode.

U.S. Rep. John Murtha (D., Pa.) introduced a resolution on Nov. 17 calling for the deployment of U.S. troops in Iraq to be terminated and the redeployment of the forces "at the earliest practicable date," which he said could take about six months. The resolution called for a "quick-reaction U.S. force and an over-the-horizon presence of U.S. Marines" to be deployed.

Mr. Murtha, a retired Marine reserve colonel and a decorated Vietnam veteran, is a substantive man. The news media described his resolution as a blow to the Bush Administration.

"When President Bush decided to wage war on Saddam Hussein, perhaps no Democrat was a firmer ally," wrote Maura Reynolds in the Los Angeles Times.

This was untrue. Mr. Murtha had expressed doubt about going to war in 2002, and had declared Iraq "unwinnable" in May of last year.

Showing more backbone and more brains than they customarily do, House Republicans the next day called for a vote on a resolution stating simply that "the deployment of United States forces in Iraq be terminated immediately." It failed, 403-3.

Democrats who had applauded the introduction of Mr. Murtha's resolution whined it was dirty pool for Republicans to make them vote on his bottom line. "It's a trap," a Democratic strategist told Newsweek's Eleanor Clift. "If the party comes out for a unilateral six-month withdrawal, that would become the issue for '06, and they [Republicans] would kill us again."

Democrats like to make antiwar noises for their moonbat base, but were unwilling to cast a vote that could hurt them with swing voters.

They were too cowardly to be forthright cowards.