On Tuesday's show, Rachel Maddow stated that
There was no al Qaeda presence in Iraq when we invaded in 2003. But in 2004, "al Qaeda in Iraq" was formed by Jordanian Militant Abu Musad al Zarqawi
The claim of "no al Qaeda presence in Iraq when we invaded" isn't exactly true. Zarqawi operated in Iraq prior to the 2003 invasion, and was considered at the time an al Qaeda affiliate. This is a very important distinction because ignoring that fact obscures one of the most reprehensible and yet largely unknown policy decisions of the Bush administration--the decision to make sure Zarqawi was operating an al Qaeda linked terrorist cell in Iraq at the time of the invasion, purely for its propaganda value--a decision which directly led to the beheading of Nick Berg, the deaths of many hundreds of innocent civilians, and very nearly a terrorist attack in Great Britain, all at the hands of the Zarqawi-led operation that likely would not have existed if the National Security Council hadn't repeatedly vetoed Pentagon plans to cleanly eliminate it prior to the war.
To be clear, Zarqawi was able to personally execute Nick Berg because Dick Cheney wanted to be able to say this:
remember Abu Musab al Zarqawi, a Jordanian terrorist, al Qaeda affiliate; ran a training camp in Afghanistan for al Qaeda, then migrated -- after we went into Afghanistan and shut him down there, he went to Baghdad, took up residence there before we ever launched into Iraq; organized the al Qaeda operations inside Iraq before we even arrived on the scene, and then, of course, led the charge for Iraq until we killed him last June.... This is al Qaeda operating in Iraq. And as I say, they were present before we invaded Iraq.
- Dick Cheney interview with Rush Limbaugh 4/5/07
Consider the following from NBC's Chief Pentagon correspondent Jim Miklaszewski's March 2, 2004 article
"Avoiding Attacking Suspected Terrorist Mastermind":
In June 2002, U.S. officials say intelligence had revealed that Zarqawi and members of al-Qaeda had set up a weapons lab at Kirma, in northern Iraq, producing deadly ricin and cyanide. The Pentagon quickly drafted plans to attack the camp with cruise missiles and air-strikes and sent it to the White House, where, according to U.S. government sources, the plan was debated to death in the National Security Council. [snip] Four months later, intelligence showed Zarqawi was planning to use ricin in terrorist attacks in Europe. The Pentagon drew up a second strike plan, and the White House again killed it. [snip] In January 2003, the threat turned real. Police in London arrested six terror suspects and discovered a ricin lab connected to the camp in Iraq. [snip] The Pentagon drew up still another attack plan, and for the third time, the National Security Council killed it.
Military officials insist their case for attacking Zarqawi’s operation was airtight, but the administration feared destroying the terrorist camp in Iraq could undercut its case for war against Saddam.
The Miklaszewski article, which cited unnamed sources, was
confirmed in a 2006 ABC TV interview with Mike Scheuer, who in 2002 was head of the CIA's Osama bin Laden unit.
Almost every day we sent a package to the White House that had overhead imagery of the house he [Zarqawi] was staying in. It was a terrorist training camp [snip] experimenting with ricin and anthrax [snip] any collateral damage there would have been terrorists.
So now you have the whole story. Al Qaeda did have a presence in Iraq prior to the 2003 invasion, and Nick Berg et al were likely collateral damage in a Bush administration propaganda war. Those are important details, I think.
(All emphasis added)