"Saddam Hussein recently authorized Iraqi field commanders to use chemical weapons"

This was in Bush's speech, and it's the lead story on Drudge. However, it was also in Powell's speech yesterday.

Now, just because the Brits apparently were acting like schoolboys and lifted most of their report from other sources, doesn't make it inaccurate. But, it does give some cause to cheer.

This article (reason . com/hod/tc020503.shtml) and this article and this have dissenting opinions on Zarqawi.

And here's an interview with a former CIA senior political analyst on Iraq who wasn't convinced by Powell's speech.

Hesiod has outtakes from an NYT article about Zarqawi, and links to other articles. The Iraqis have known that we've known he's there, or at least who he is, for a long time. Simply because he was mentioned in Powell's speech, I doubt whether they're going to do anything that they wouldn't already have done.

Comments

Hussein can't do anything about it because the camp is located in the northern no-fly zone, where Hussein's army doesn't operate. Oddly, the CIA does operate there, as (obviously) do our bombers, so Powell was forced to ineptly dodged the question put to him today: If we know this al Qaeda camp is operating in the no fly zone, why the hell haven't we bombed it already?