Media reports about an intercepted letter from Osama bin Laden to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi claim the al-Qaeda chief asked Zarqawi to attack US targets (WAR Report). It is not clear whether the ?U.S. targets? bin Laden wants hit are overseas or in the continental United States; indeed, it is not clear that Zarqawi is capable of an attack in America. Given these uncertainties, how should the letter be viewed?

As Robert E. Lee said, it is best to believe your enemy will do what makes sense from his perspective, not yours. In some ways, bin Laden?s letter to Zarqawi, and Zarqawi?s late-2004 loyalty pledge to bin Laden (WAR Report), are a defeat for the United States even if Zarqawi never attacks US interests. Since mid-2002, bin Laden, Ayman Zawahiri , and al-Qaeda?s Internet websites have asserted the need to dilute the focus of US leaders, as well as spread US anti-al-Qaeda forces as thinly as possible. In their phrase, US forces must be spread ?from the farthest East to the farthest West.? It is in this context that bin Laden-Zarqawi ties are of most value to al-Qaeda. Washington now counts Zarqawi?s forces as al-Qaeda forces, and, for that reason, they are at the top of the US threat list. Intelligence mentioning Zarqawi will now be treated with the importance of a purloined al-Qaeda battle plan. The result must be the further dispersing of US intelligence assets from an already too thin deployment.