Another collection of links, these related to Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi, the terrorist believed to have killed Nicholas Berg, and suspected in both the Madrid bombings and the Karbala atrocity. This story broke a month or more ago, after those two attacks - most of the cites below are mostly from late March. The Berg murder has brought the story back to the fore, however.

The scandal is this - Al-Zarqawi was operating in northern Iraq, outside the area controlled by Saddam HUssein, back before the war. He was known to be associated with Al-Qaeda - plans were laid to take him out. Three times, apparently, these plans were prepared, but they were nixed, because of the preparations for the invasion of Iraq. Now (the plot goes) we reap the whirlwind.

This is the article that broke the story: Avoiding attacking suspected terrorist mastermind.

This is John Quiggan's 3/29 Post on the subject. Follow up here (cross posted to Crooked Timber. The first post has an interesting comment thread, including what looks to amateur me like a pretty serious attempt at a rebuttal to the claims that attacking Al-Ansar/Al-Zarqawi was a serious option.

Finally, some raw data: Juan Cole's Dossiers on Al - Zarqawi. Juan Cole's blog, Informed Comment is a superb source for information and, indeed, informed comment, on the war in Iraq.