CATCHING ZARQAWI

The lungs of master terrorist Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi exploded after a 500-pound American bomb fell on his Iraqi safe house. He had a $25 million reward on his head and yet it took years to eliminate him. That other poster boy of evil, Osama bin Laden, is still wandering around the caves of Afghanistan/Pakistan. How come with all our fancy spyware and intelligence resources we can't run down the renegades?

The answer lies in the Zarqawi saga. He made the fatal mistake of blowing up a few hotels in Jordan and that made the locals there upset. So the Jordanian intelligence organization, which knew a lot about homeboy Zarqawi, got into the mix. If it's one thing the repressive states of the Middle East know, it's how to find and eliminate their enemies. Everyone has a folder in the intelligence office files. When the Jordanian spooks set out to trap Zarqawi, they finished the job in less than a year. Of course, the U.S. was the frontman in the clean-up. It's easier to explain to the neighbors, who always root for the terrorists. But the Jordanians pegged Zarqawi's associates and finally tracked one to his lair.

If we are smart, that's the tactic we need to use with the Saudi Arabians, Iranians, Syrians and the rest of those wonderful people in the Middle East. At the same time we're building our own spy network in that explosive region, which will take years, we should enlist the services of their sneaky, repressive, but effective, operatives.
They may use methods that would turn a humanitarian's stomach, but we're trying to eliminate murdering terrorists here. Remember, "it takes a thief to catch a thief"