Zarqawi catch and release?

That's what CNN is flashing right now. That rather stinks, if true.

And it is rather interesting timing, don't you think? Wonder who decided to leak this story? Perhaps the news today was just too good for Bush, so it was time to throw another pail of cold water on him. The democrats might use this story to manipulate the rest of the news cycle.

MORE

CNN.com is still splashing the headline. They are essentially alone in the news universe with it right now. Nothing at Fox or Drudge, AFP, Reuters, or AP. Nothing on the top conservative blogs. Lefty Huffington Post is also ignoring it, but Kos isn't.

So this one remains in the highly dubious and questionable file until further corroboration, but no matter, the timing is extremely suspect. Someone had to leak this to the media, who took it to Deputy Interior Minister Hussein Kamal for a "confirmation". CNN quoted a "US Official" but didn't give his department. For all we know that could have been someone from the Census Bureau.

MORE 12/16

AP is now reporting that the Iraqi Minister's story about the Zarqawi catch and release was broadcast on Lebanese TV on Wednesday. CNN had been the only major network reporting the event, which supposedly occurred a year ago near Fallujah. The Iraqis are blamed for releasing him, not the Marines.

Assuming there's a shred of truth to this, several possibilities seem to jump out. The most obvious is that the Iraqi forces were utterly incompetent a year ago and failed to ID this guy or call the Marines about him. They just let him go. Amidst the confusion surrounding the Fallujah offensive that might be 'plausible'.

Another possibility is that the Iraqis let him go out of sympathy. That would be much worse. Still another possibility is that we let him go, thinking he would be more useful running loose or dead than captured.

Based on our old friend Occam's Razor I'd say it was likely an Iraqi army screw-up.