One would think the capture of al-Qaeda's #1 guy in Iraq, Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi, would be good news for America. After all:
...his most recent assignment was as the successor to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq who was killed by U.S. forces last summer. Officials said al-Iraqi hoped to lead Sunni insurgents in Iraq and coordinate their efforts with al-Qaeda's global operation. The Pentagon said he traveled to Iran, meeting with al-Qaeda operatives to urge them to do more against U.S. troops in Iraq.
We captured an enemy military commander in a time of war, one responsible for directing the deaths of possibly hundreds of American troops and Lord knows how many Iraqi civilians; isn't that big news? Er...not really. Check out the headline:
CIA Held Al-Qaeda Suspect Secretly
You see, this is not about a key military and strategic victory on the battlefield, it is simply another way to attempt to scandalize the Bush Administration, and somehow discredit the United States. The Washington Post's lead to this story of an American victory in wartime has to be read to be believed:
An Iraqi man accused of being a key aide to Osama bin Laden and a top leader of al-Qaeda was arrested late last year on his way to Iraq and handed over to the CIA, the Pentagon announced yesterday, in what became the first secret overseas detention since President Bush acknowledged the existence of such a program last September.
The disclosure revealed that the Bush administration reopened its detention program within three months of announcing that no secret prisoners remained in the CIA's custody. The program has been criticized by human rights organizations and U.S. allies.
Scandal! Bush might have misled the media! Hang him high, and release al-Iraqi, victim of American human rights abuses!
Actually, this happened three months after Bush made his "announcement", so what do they expect? A press release stating the CIA is holding a secret prisoner? Has the media gone completely insane?
The WaPost makes no secret of their favorite horse in this race:
....human rights groups challenged the Bush administration and the CIA to publicly reveal their interrogation methods and disputed the legality of secret detention.
Yesterday's announcement "raises worrying questions about how long he has been detained by the CIA, where he was held, what kind of treatment he endured, and whether other prisoners still remain in CIA detention," the New York-based organization Human Rights Watch said in a statement, referring to al-Iraqi. The group called the secret detention "a blatant violation of international law."
What about the capture of the man guilty of slaughtering hundreds, maybe thousands, of innocent Iraqi civilians? No comment on that, I notice, from "Human Rights Watch". What a joke...next stop Gaza, to denounce Israel, while keeping their backs smartly turned to the Quassam rockets being fired by Hamas at civilian targets.
Meanwhile, and not unrelated, we have this:
U.S. forces detained 17 suspected insurgents in raids targeting al-Qaida in Iraq on Saturday, the military said, a day after the Pentagon announced the capture of one of the terror network's most senior and experienced operatives.
The insurgent group has claimed responsibility for some of the deadliest attacks in Iraq, including the bombing last year of a revered Shiite mosque in Samarra that touched off a fierce cycle of retaliatory sectarian violence.
Seems like the capture and "secret detention" of HRW's fuzzy little al-Qaeda leader has paid some dividends, and saved some lives. No mention of this in the Washington Post; they have an agenda to follow, and the truth has absolutely no part in it...
More on the big picture here.
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