Zarqawi, al Qaeda are heading out

Washington Times reports Al Qaeda in Iraq and its presumed leader, Abu Musab Zarqawi, have conceded strategic defeat and are on their way out of the country, a top U.S. military official contended yesterday.

This would be nice, IF it is true.

The group's failure to disrupt national elections and a constitutional referendum last year "was a tactical admission by Zarqawi that their strategy had failed," said Lt. Gen. John R. Vines, who commands the XVIII Airborne Corps.

True, but evil usually does not quit just because it realizes it made a mistake

"They no longer view Iraq as fertile ground to establish a caliphate and as a place to conduct international terrorism," he said in an address at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

Where are they going now?

.... Gen. Vines said the foreign terrorists had made a strategic mistake when they tried to intimidate and deny Iraqis a way to vote. "I believe Zarqawi discredited himself with the Iraqi people because of his willingness to slaughter Iraqi people," he said.

It is not strange that they did not like that.

Huthayafa Azzam, whose father was seen as a political mentor of bin Laden, told reporters in Jordan in early April that Zarqawi had been replaced as head of the terrorist fight in Iraq in an effort to put an Iraqi at the head of the organization.

Thaat was not long ago, long after the elections. And now they are quitting?

Azzam said Zarqawi had "made many political mistakes," including excessive violence and the bombing last November of a Jordanian hotel, and as a result was being "confined to military action."