In June 2002, U.S. officials say intelligence had revealed that Zarqawi and members of al-Qaida had set up a weapons lab at Kirma, in northern Iraq, producing deadly ricin and cyanide.

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.

An interesting data point on Al'Z. My understanding was that he wasn't formally part of Al'Q until well into the Iraq war. I guess it doesn't matter. I agree that if they had a chance to take him out, they should have. However, if we knew that this guy was running terrorist operations out of Iraq that targetted Europe, and Saddam was not cooperating with us in shutting these operations down, then that puts Iraq very much on same footing that the Government of Afghanistan was on, in terms of harboring Bin Laden. However, whether or not Iraq really was aware of Al'Z's presense seems to be a matter of some debate. For some reason this is a datapoint that escaped me until the aftermath of his death.

What would the geopolitical implications have been of a U.S. strike against a terrorist training camp in Iraq without the benefit of a formal process involving the Security Counsel, which would have given Iraq a clear attempt to respond (and which in the case of afghanistan resulted in the terrorists going underground)?

Avoiding attacking suspected terrorist mastermind - Nightly News with Brian Williams - MSNBC.com