Iraq's White Box Truck

I have wondered for a long time whether Abu Musab al-Zarqawi actually exists. Way back before the war started, Secretary of State Colin Powell gave his famous presentation before the United Nations in an attempt to prove with evidence that Iraq needed to be invaded for military strategic reasons. One of the pieces of evidence he presented was that Iraq had terrorist connections, particularly through Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

Funny, but nobody could actually prove that he was there, even then. He was rumored to have ties to Saddam Hussein's regime. When the insurgency started, the first assumption was that Zarqawi was somehow behind it. This became gospel truth. So now we've been chasing this guy for almost three years, with not even a sighting of him made. There have been videos of masked people claiming to be him, usually beheading someone or making a threat. But we haven't found a trace of this guy. And it would seem to me that if we could find Saddam in a spider hole in the middle of nowhere, we should be able to find the most famous terrorist in Iraq if he does so exist.

This article in Newsday got me thinking yesterday. In it, they question whether Zarqawi is even a real human being:

"He can move around any number of Iraqi areas. He can change his appearance, he can change his papers," said Dana Ahmad Majid, head of security for the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, one of two parties that control the autonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq. "He could be moving around alone without any problem. Al-Zarqawi is a single man, and it's always extremely difficult to capture a single person."

Asked if he thought al-Zarqawi escaped during last month's U.S. assault on Fallujah, Majid smiled, took a drag on his cigarette and said, "Who knows that al-Zarqawi was ever in Fallujah?"

It's almost like this guy has superhuman powers to conceal himself and control the minds of erstwhile traitors. I don't believe it. I wouldn't doubt if Zarqawi, the man, died long ago in some obscure battle without identification. Now he's legend. He's like the white box truck everyone was looking for during the DC sniper period. Everyone is looking one way while the actual perpetrator is someone else or some other entity entirely.

I can't wait to see the headline saying he's been captured or killed. I just don't know whether there's anyone out there to capture or kill in the first place.