Washington – As Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., said on NBC’s “Today” show Thursday, the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is a “very, very, very, very good thing.”
Yet as White House press secretary Tony Snow noted a few hours later, “I don’t want people to get giddy about this, or euphoric.
“It is still a war,” said Snow. “And there are still going to be tough days.”
So it went in Washington as news of al-Zarqawi’s death spread. American leaders were elated at the military success and tantalized by the strategic potential but quick to say that one good day won’t win a war.
“I didn’t get the sense this was a time of celebration for the president,” Florida Gov. Jeb Bush said, after meeting at the White House with his brother and several fellow governors.
“The president was clearly focused on the long term,” said Gov. Bill Owens, who also participated in the meeting. “The capture or killing of one terrorist, by itself, is not going to turn the tide.”
There are sound reasons for restraint. Al-Zarqawi’s terrorist band represents just one of several threats to Iraq’s stability.
His death won’t end the sectarian warfare between Sunni and Shiite militia members and death squads, or persuade Baathist hard-liners to end their uprising.
“Most of the insurgency will not be affected because al-Qaeda is a highly visible and extraordinarily brutal cadre within a much larger group of different insurgent movements,” said Anthony Cordesman, an analyst for the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
“The insurgency is now dominated by extreme Sunni Arab insurgent elements which seek to provoke a more intense civil conflict and are willing to escalate to steadily higher levels of violence,” Cordesman said.
The 2003 arrest of Saddam Hussein, and the killing of his two sons, did not bring calm and security to Iraq. Nor have a series of popular elections.
And Thursday’s other good news – that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki had finally named key security ministers for his government – was leavened by the six months he took to do it.
But such caveats need not detract from the very real accomplishments of the al-Zarqawi raid: By all accounts, it was skillfully planned and executed and based on good intelligence.
“I think arguably over the last several years, no single person on this planet has had the blood of more innocent men, women and children on his hands,” a pleased Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told reporters.
“He personified the dark, sadistic and medieval vision of the future of beheadings and suicide bombings and indiscriminate killings,” Rumsfeld said.
Moreover, al-Zarqawi’s death may be followed with more intelligence coups, as U.S. forces launched 17 follow-up raids around Baghdad as part of the operation, uncovering what military commanders there called a “treasure trove” of information.
It was a day, in the end, not of guarantees, but of possibilities.
“Zarqawi’s death is a severe blow to al-Qaeda,” said President Bush. “It’s an opportunity for Iraq’s new government to turn the tide of this struggle.”
