How we caught Zarqawi

If you have time to burn, read the Mark Bowden (of Black Hawk Down fame) article in the new Atlantic about how the U.S. military hunted down al-Zarqawi. It's a remarkable story of an operation that worked in Iraq, and makes you wonder how we couldn't and still can't catch Osama bin-Laden. The article shows post-Abu-Ghraib military interrogators working within boundaries and getting key information, with at least a little bit of luck. Rather than traditional Bowden fare of commando raids and firefights, this reads like a police procedural, Law & Order: Baghdad. Riveting stuff.

Clearly, though, our military is not incompetent, nor is the local population entirely indifferent to the insurgents. The problem lies in politics, organization, and public relations, and in all those respects, this administration has utterly failed.

If you don't have an Atlantic subscription... uh, tough luck. But they only cost $15 a year at the special rate found here, and the internet login lasts forever (as Schmidtty and I discovered). Not to mention that it's the best monthly (ok, 10-issue) magazine in America. (Sorry, National Geographic.)