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How the U.S. found al-Zarqawi

Acting on tips from terror network insider, U.S. military finds, then bombs, safehouse in Iraq

BY CRAIG GORDON | Newsday Washington Bureau

June 9, 2006

WASHINGTON - In the late afternoon skies over Iraq, a pair of F-16C pilots were "in the orbit," as the Air Force calls it, cruising through a routine patrol Wednesday that was about to become anything but.

Their radios crackled. All they were told was that a "high-value target" -- military-speak for a terrorist big shot -- was in an isolated safehouse set off in a date palm grove far below.

Here are the coordinates for the place, they heard. Prepare to engage.

As the two pilots swung toward Baqouba, the most-wanted man in Iraq probably didn't even notice the fighter jets, purposely kept miles away, or realize he had been betrayed by a supposed ally in terror and trailed there by U.S. special forces.

Put simply, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi -- the face of the Iraqi insurgency, a beheader of Americans and bomber of civilians, a man whose taste for violence made him stand out even in a violent land -- never saw it coming, U.S. officials believe.

Two bombs make contact

The first 500-pound laser-guided bomb slammed into the safehouse at 6:15 p.m. Wednesday Baghdad time -- 10:15 a.m. in New York.

The pilots doubled back and decided not to take any chances.

They dropped a second satellite-guided 500-pounder "to ensure the target set was serviced appropriately," one Air Force general said dryly.

Al-Zarqawi, his "spiritual adviser" Sheik Abu Abdul-Rahman and four others were dead -- the climactic end to a weeks-long investigation.

It came together bit by bit through tips from a senior leader inside al-Zarqawi's terror network and other information that put U.S. officials onto the adviser, who inadvertently led U.S. forces to the location.

More than mere suggestion

It was by far the best-news day in Iraq in months -- a boost for a U.S. president and a mission badly in need of a lift.

Yet it took hours for that news to filter back to the White House -- so long that President George W. Bush was still talking about the need to get al-Zarqawi long after he was dead.

When Bush met at the White House Wednesday afternoon with members of Congress who recently visited Iraq, Rep. Ray LaHood (R-Ill.) concluded his report with a seemingly obvious suggestion -- it would really help if the United States could get rid of al-Zarqawi.

"You're right," the president replied, according to LaHood -- neither man knowing LaHood's prescription for success had already been accomplished some six hours earlier.

One person in the ornamental Roosevelt Room among the luminaries may have had an inkling that LaHood's request might have just been filled.

LaHood said he noticed that national security adviser Stephen Hadley appeared preoccupied and was rushing in and out of the room, checking his Blackberry and cell phone. It was only after the meeting, back in the Oval Office at 4:35 p.m., that Hadley told Bush two pieces of good news: The Iraqis had finally picked defense and interior ministers, and U.S. forces believed they had gotten al-Zarqawi.

"That would be a good thing," Bush said to those gathered, according to his press secretary Tony Snow.

"The president, in situations like this, tends to be very practical. You know, he's not going to run around the room giving high fives," Snow said of Bush.