Al-Zarqawi Alive When Troops Arrived (Video)

The U.S. military now says Al-Zarqawi was alive when troops arrived.

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was alive on a stretcher and tried to move off it when U.S. troops reached the wounded terrorist leader after his safe house had been bombed, a U.S. general said at a news conference Friday. “Zarqawi did survive the airstrike,” Maj. Gen. William Caldwell, the spokesman for the U.S. military in Baghdad said. “We did in fact see him alive.” “There was some kind of movement on the stretcher and he died shortly thereafter,” he said.

Not that it much matters, I suppose, but this contradicts the initial statements from yesterday’s pressers.

CNN has a 2:27 video entitled “Watch how al-Zarqawi’s final moments unfolded.”

YouTube has the CENTCOM-released video of the strike that got Zarqawi:



UPDATE:
Even better: The CENTCOM video of the strike with President Bush’s speech on the Zarqawi strike as a voiceover, plus rap music and Toby Keith.

Gotta love American ingenuity.

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James Joyner
About James Joyner
James Joyner is Professor and Department Head of Security Studies at Marine Corps University's Command and Staff College. He's a former Army officer and Desert Storm veteran. Views expressed here are his own. Follow James on Twitter @DrJJoyner.

Comments

  1. LJD says:

    It absolutely matters.

    He knows he was caught by the infidels prior to his journey to hell.

    At first I was disappointed to think that he didn’t even know what hit him.

  2. McGehee says:

    …this contradicts the initial statements from yesterday�s pressers.

    I distinctly remember seeing something yesterday — and now I wish I could remember where — that said Zarqawi was alive when found, and died later.

  3. James Joyner says:

    Kev: I recall that as well, although a later statement (maybe Rumsfeld?) refuted that. I’ll see if I can puzzle it together if I have time.

  4. Bithead says:

    So, this also means the murderous bastard suffered greatly, not only physically… which he most certainly deserved, but knowing whom it was who had gotten him.

    Somehow, I’m more pleased bout this today than I was yesterday.

  5. Pug says:

    It’s great if Zarqawi started his journey to Hell with the image of American soldiers in his mind.