THE AGE.com.au

US 'allowed Zarqawi to escape'
May 1, 2006
By Chris Evans

"Mr Bush had Zarqawi in his sights almost every day for a year before the invasion of Iraq and he didn't shoot because they were wining and dining the French in an effort to get them to assist us in the invasion of Iraq,"

"Almost every day we sent a package to the White House that had overhead imagery of the house he was staying in. It was a terrorist training camp . . . experimenting with ricin and anthrax . . . any collateral damage there would have been terrorists."

Slate

Why Bush let Iraq's top terrorist walk

Posted Friday, Oct. 29, 2004, at 5:08 PM ET
By Daniel Benjamin

In recent months, the mystery of the administration's inaction has only grown. News reports - including, most recently, one in the Wall Street Journal this week - make it clear that military leaders and the CIA felt Zarqawi was a threat that could and should be removed. On at least three occasions between mid-2002 and the invasion of Iraq, the Pentagon presented plans to the White House to destroy the Khurmal camp. Each time the White House declined to act or did not respond at all.

TIMES ONLINE.co.uk

Iraqis unknowingly captured al-Zarqawi then set him free
December 17, 2005
From Richard Beeston in Baghdad and Stephen Farrell in Fallujah

IRAQI security forces captured Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the fugitive terrorist leader, last year but freed him because they did not know who he was.

According to Major-General Hussein Kamal, the Deputy Interior Minister responsible for Intelligence, the head of al-Qaeda in Iraq was detained by police for several hours more than a year ago in Fallujah, which was then an insurgent stronghold.