Editorial: Better chance now for Iraq

Friday, June 9, 2006 | 7:42 a.m.

One can only imagine what Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was discussing with fellow insurgent leaders Wednesday when two 500-pound bombs from American F-16s put a sudden end to their lives. If their pasts were any indication, they were discussing plans to kill more coalition forces or Iraqi Shiite Muslims.

For all of al-Zarqawi's past atrocities, including beheadings, roadside bomb attacks and mass executions, and for all of the violence and hate he was preparing to unleash in the future, we are glad that those bombs found their mark in the village of Hib Hib northwest of Baghdad.

The United States brought new hope to Iraq by ridding it of the 39-year-old Jordanian-born terrorist, whose guidance of a vicious insurgency over the past three years led to the deaths of thousands of people, including hundreds in the American armed forces.

Al-Zarqawi's embrace of terror began in his early 20s, before the first Gulf War and long before the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. He traveled extensively in Afghanistan, where he met Osama bin Laden, and Pakistan, Lebanon, Syria, Iran and Iraq, building a network of anti-Semitic and Western-hating terrorists. But he became known to the world only three years ago in Iraq, when he began announcing himself as the one behind a rash of suicide and roadside bombings, kidnappings and insurgent attacks against U.S. troops and Iraqi security forces.

While his death is an important milestone in the war on terrorism, adopting a celebratory mood would be premature. Even President Bush, who donned a flight suit and cheered aboard an aircraft carrier after Saddam Hussein fled Baghdad, was muted in his response Thursday. He now realizes that terrorists and insurgents carry on, despite the loss of a central leader.

But this is a time for hope. Maybe now that al-Zarqawi's aura of invincibility has been punctured, a new era may get started, one in which Iraqis are no longer intimidated by violence and give their new government the chance it needs to grow and earn their support.