Al Qaeda shopped Zarqawi to Bush in exchange for reducing search for Bin Laden

CNN reports that the Intelligence that fingered Zarqawi and led to his death was part of a deal between al Qaeda and the Bush administration. Al Qaeda reported where Zarqawi was, and the Bush administration agreed to reduce the search for bin Laden.

This is a report of the deal:

"Meanwhile, al-Zarqawi's wife told an Italian newspaper that al Qaeda leaders sold him out to the United States in exchange for a promise to let up in the search for Osama bin Laden.

The woman, identified by La Repubblica as al-Zarqawi's first wife, said al Qaeda's top leadership reached a deal with U.S. intelligence because al Zarqawi had become too powerful.

She claimed Sunni tribes and Jordanian secret services mediated the deal.

"My husband has been sold to the Americans," the woman said in an interview published Sunday. "He had become too powerful, too troublesome."

The deal wasn't hard to accept. The Bush administration had already closed down the special CIA CounterTerrorist unit that was set up a decade ago under Bill Clinton to get bin Laden. See this New York Times report:

"The Central Intelligence Agency has closed a unit that for a decade had the mission of hunting Osama bin Laden and his top lieutenants, intelligence officials confirmed Monday.

The unit, known as Alec Station, was disbanded late last year and its analysts reassigned within the C.I.A. Counterterrorist Center, the officials said.

The decision is a milestone for the agency, which formed the unit before Osama bin Laden became a household name and bolstered its ranks after the Sept. 11 attacks, when President Bush pledged to bring Mr. bin Laden to justice "dead or alive."

In a bureauracy you can determine what the priorities of the top people are by how the organization is structured. This move makes it perfectly clear that bin Laden is worth more to Bush somewhere in a cave in Pakistan than he is caught or killed.

Closing the CIA unit focused on catching or killing bin Laden also provides support to the idea that Bush intentionally failed to provide the troops needed at Tora Bora to catch bin Laden, and he was probably fully aware of the emergency airlift getting top al Qaeda members out before Tora Bora fell.

See also

Jawbreaker: The Attack on Bin Laden and Al Qaeda: A Personal Account by the CIA's Key Field Commander

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Meteor Blades at The Next Hurrah provides an excellent discussion of the bin Laden - al-Zarkawi relationship. It was never good.