By Andrew L. Jaffee

It wasn’t just that we killed Zarqawi. U.S. and Iraqi forces have taken the Zarqawi killing much further, in terms of intelligence, killing terrorists, and capturing them:

The US says coalition forces in Iraq have carried out more than 450 raids since the death last week of al-Qaeda’s leader in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

The US said 104 insurgents were killed and 759 “anti-Iraqi elements” captured.

Iraq says documents seized after the killing of Zarqawi yielded vital leads and that this may be the “beginning of the end” of al-Qaeda in Iraq. …

A US military spokesman in Baghdad, Major General William Caldwell, said raids following Zarqawi’s killing in an air strike near Baquba, north of Baghdad, had taken place across Iraq.

In addition to Iraqi insurgents killed or captured, Gen Caldwell said 28 significant arms caches had been found by US and Iraqi forces. …

…documents seized after the raid that killed Zarqawi had given coalition forces “the upper hand”.

[Iraq’s national security adviser] Mr Rubaie said a pocket hard-drive, a laptop and documents were found in the debris after the strike.

The documents and records revealed the names and whereabouts of other al-Qaeda in Iraq leaders, he said, and that the subsequent raids had yielded more information.

“The government is on the attack now,” Mr Rubaie said.

One of the documents showed that Zarqawi was planning to try to start a war between the US and Iran by carrying out attacks - falsely attributed to Iran - on US interests, the prime minister’s office said.