There's no word yet on the fate of the British hostage Kenneth Bigley. Earlier this week, two American hostages, Eugene Armstrong and Jack Hensley, were beheaded after being kidnapped in Iraq along with Bigley. Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has reportedly claimed responsibility for these killings, the beheading of Nicholas Berg, and is considered responsible for hundreds of other attacks in the war torn nation.

I discussed Zarqawi with a co-worker the other day, and he had just heard for the first time about the fact that the Bush Administration killed three plans put together by the Pentagon to take out Zarqawi and his camps in the Kurdish territory in northern Iraq. The plans were put together at various points leading up to the Iraq war in 2002 and early 2003.

The reason for letting Zarqawi off the hook? The president and his national security team believed removing the terrorist from the equation would've undercut the rationale for the war itself.