Earlier this year, Leslie Rowe, the embassy's second-ranking official, signed off on a cable back to State Department headquarters that detailed grave concerns throughout the region about American efforts in Somalia, according to several people with knowledge of the report.

Around that time, the State Department's political officer for Somalia, Michael Zorick, who had been based in Nairobi, was reassigned to Chad after he sent a cable to Washington criticizing Washington's policy of paying Somali warlords.

Some Africa experts contend that the United States has lost its focus on how to deal with the larger threat of terrorism in East Africa by putting a premium on its effort to capture or kill a small number of high-level suspects.

This article is nominally about Somalia, but it's also about Zarqawi.

State says, "It's a Scene, Stupid," but Defense still sees it as a celebrity culture.