If al-Zarqawi did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him. The “Jordanian-born” militant (variously described as “Palestinian” or “Bedouin”) is the link posited by the Bush administration between Saddam Hussein, the secularist, and bin Laden, the Islamic fundamentalist. (In his crucial speech to the United Nations before the war, Colin Powell declared that there was a “sinister nexus between Iraq and the Al Qaida terrorist network” and asserted that al-Zarqawi was the key figure in that nexus.) Any other links—such as the 1997 training of al-Qaeda operatives in airline hijacking, which supposedly took place at the Salman Pak training facility outside Baghdad---have been discredited. That leaves us with the al-Zarqawi link. The nice thing about the latter is that al-Zarqawi straddles the pre-invasion and post-invasion periods, and so can be used (by the neocons anyway) to justify not only the invasion but the ongoing occupation. Why’d we invade? Because, Cheney (who can no longer speak of weapons of mass destruction) explains, of those “long established ties with al-Qaeda.” Why are we still there? Because al-Zarqawi (either depicted as “linked to al-Qaeda” or as an al-Qaeda “operative”) is there in Iraq, and if his influence grows, Iraq will become Osama bin-Laden’s base for more attacks on the USA Homeland. His supposed presence, that is, justifies (so long as it may be posited) the presence of U.S. occupying forces. He—another personification of evil, a human face on Terror to add to that of the frustratingly elusive bin Laden---is indeed necessary.
http://www.counterpunch.com/leupp06182004.html

Some people (including German intelligence agents) think al-Zarqawi is as much a rival as ally to bin-Laden. The Christian Science Monitor suggests that the two men differ on how to exploit Shiite-Sunni differences in Iraq. (So best not to give to many details about this evil person, other than to make sure all know he is indeed evil, so sneakily so that if logical contradictions appear in media coverage of his activities, he, rather than they, are to blame.) But logical thinking aside, if one can depict al-Zarqawi as the mastermind of ongoing resistance to the occupation of Iraq, then you can divert attention from the general, indigenous, Iraqi rejection of the occupation, while depicting that occupation as an anti-al-Qaeda effort.

It helps to have full cooperation from a puppet government in Iraq. Following the spate of car-bombings in Baghdad recently, newly-appointed Iraqi “President” Iyad al-Allawi attributed them to the Jordanian’s nefarious network in Iraq, and declared that, “Al-Zarqawi and his followers are earnestly working to prevent the success of” the “transfer of power” to the bogus government later this month. It’s significant that longtime CIA operative al-Allawi states al-Zarqawi is behind the attacks. Al-Allawi and his Iraqi National Accord are well known for authenticating in early 2003 the discredited report that the Iraqi military could deploy chemical weapons, threatening Britons, within 45 minutes of being ordered to do so.

Then last December, al-Allawi confirmed the authenticity of a supposed hand-written memo by Tahir Jalil Habbush al-Tikriti, the former head of the Iraqi Intelligence Service, found by U.S. troops in Iraq. It described a three-day “work programme” undertaken by none other than Chief 9-11 Hijacker Mohammed Atta at a Baghdad in 1991, and it mentioned a shipment of something from Niger via Libya to Iraq. Needing an imprimatur for this wonderful text, that seemed to validate several debunked administration allegations, the U.S. leaned on the reliable al-Allawi to stamp his approval on the document.

But refuting al-Allawi is the behavior of the Iraqi people. When attacks (that the puppet president attributes to al-Zarqawi) produce, around the bombing sites, joyous celebrations of Iraqi youth dancing and chanting, “America is the enemy of God,” it gets hard to depict them as the product of “foreign” interference. That very depiction is a form of disinformation, following upon so many, many instances of official deceit---that long established policy of the Bush-Cheney administration.

These are not good days for the Bushites, but their success to date in their deceit (most strikingly indicated by a poll taken just two months ago showing 57% of Americans still believe in the Iraq-Sept. 11 link) makes celebration of their fall premature.

With some influential neocons insisting that al-Zarqawi is sponsored by Iran (and in their general campaign against the Muslim world finding no logical contradiction in his ties to al-Qaeda, Baathist Iraq, and the mullocracy in Tehran) we can be sure that the Jordanian, Osama II, remains in the news, reinvented from time to time as required.