Washington Post intelligence reporter Dana Priest was online Thursday, June 8, at 12:30 p.m. ET to discuss the latest developments in national security and intelligence.

Priest was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for Beat Reporting .

Dana Priest covers intelligence and wrote " The Mission: Waging War and Keeping Peace With America's Military " (W.W. Norton). The book chronicles the increasing frequency with which the military is called upon to solve political and economic problems.

The transcript follows.

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Dana Priest: Hi everyone. I'm finally here.

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San Francisco, Calif.: Who replaces Zarqawi? Is the death of Sheikh Abdul Rahman equally significant?

Dana Priest: Well, I can't give you a name, but my sources say there are a couple of his lieutenants really to step in. Unlike some leaders, he apparently did train replacements. Whether some of them were killed in the strike, or would be as effective, I don't know.

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Pa.: Maybe I'm a skeptic, but I just don't see Bush and especially Cheney wishing to use diplomacy with Iran. Do you think this is set up to fail only to reinforce their wishes to use military force?

Dana Priest: No, but I do know that this feeling exists outside "Pa." I've heard it before. A set up. It just doesn't feel that way to me. They've offered the Iranians too much, especially the idea of producing enriched uranium at some point, but also the direct talks and the economic assistance in civilian nuclear power.

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Hampton, Va.: Thanks for taking this question, I imagine there's a lot of buzz about Zarqawi's death - richly earned by his sadistic and bigoted attacks - but do you think this will raise any questions about bin Laden remaining at large, and do you think OBL is still even alive?

Dana Priest: Thanks. It seems that every big catch or, in his case, killing, leads to the question of bin Laden. That's natural, but I don't see any particular link, other than to remind people that UBL is still at large. And that he's much less significant a player in AQ (and that the pre-9-11 AQ is much less powerful and significant) than it has ever been. That's the good news. The bad is that others have replaced AQ, including Zarqawi and, more worrisome, the kinds of individuals like those arrested in Canada, who don't need a bin Laden figure anymore to plan and carry out terrorist attacks. They get their inspiration and their community of jihadist on the internet.

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Portland, Ore.: Okay, one big bad guy down. What about the other?

Do you think Osama bin Laden will be caught (killed) while George Bush is President?

If bin Laden is caught, how do you think the media coverage will compare with what Zarqawi is getting now?

Dana Priest: The media coverage will be huge, but maybe not filled--at least not in the beginning days--with much new information. We'll probably do a lot of analysis on whether or not this is the end of terrorism (not). In this respect, the Zarqawi news is equally as big. He's so pivotal in Iraq and Jordan. Maybe his death will make a difference. And it might say something important (too hard to tell right now) about the Sunni willingness to give him up because he was becoming too destructive to their own goals.

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Missouri: Are any countries privately in favor of or sanguine about Iran acquiring nukes? It seems that most countries don't have much to fear in the way of Iran attacking them.

Dana Priest: There are certainly plenty of Mideast countries whose people and leadership believe Iran has the right to nukes because Israel has them. This "double-standard" argument is often heard and very heartfelt.

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Ogden, Utah: NPR this morning quoted people saying that Osama bin Laden and Zarqawi actually didn't like each other and that OBL was probably as glad as Bush that the guy is dead.

Any chance that OBL ratted him out and let us do his dirty work? Makes a great movie plot if nothing else.

Dana Priest: Great movie plot. Do Onto Others. I can see it now.

The disharmony was certainly true at one point, but then seemed to be smoothed over when Zarqawi became UBL's best hope for high-profile, American-focused terrorism. I have to think UBL isn't mobile enough or communicative enough to have actually helped with his undoing. But you never know.

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Katy, Tex.: As a very long term prospect, is there any evidence in Iraq or elsewhere that any al-Qaeda factions or their associated groups would ever move in the direction of a feasible political settlement. Not that at this time it seems anyone would consider taking them up on it.

Dana Priest: Excellent question. Many groups that used largely terrorist tactics moved, at one point, into the political realm. Hezbollah. Hamas, ETA, IRA, PLO come to mind. But not al-Qaeda. AQ is not seeking accommodation or political power. Maybe if they ruled Saudi Arabia they would cease their international operations, but I can't see them ever entering politics like that. Their vision is not self-governance, like a lot of these groups, it's ideological and amorphous. Having a great caliph is the best we can name it, but that doesn't really capture it either. That is radical Islam's strength--as a hugely seductive ideology to some people--but also it's weakness--as in Iraq, where AQ's interests really do diverge from the interests of Iraqis insurgents. Presumably most of the Iraqis really just want to control Iraq, in some form.

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RE: UBL vs. OBL: When referring to Osama bin Laden in print, I see it acronymed to OBL or UBL. To me, OBL makes sense, but UBL? Is that because some people pronounce it OOOO-sah-mah instead of OH-sah-mah? Where did the UBL acronym start and why is there even a choice between the two? A matter of National Security? Hardly. Will it satisfy my curiosity? Indubitably.

Dana Priest: It's the transliteration used by the government. No one inside the USG uses OBL. It's always UBL.

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Rockville, Md.: "about the Sunni willingness to give him up.."

Key point.

If they give him up, so follow his successors.

Dana Priest: Let's hope so.

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Raleigh, N.C.: Thanks for doing the chat.

Among the countless Zarqawi questions, I have one I think is unique.

In terms of public support for the Iraq war, do you think his death will help or hurt? He's been a key bad guy, so there's no doubt the planet is better off without him. OTOH, if in two months there's no improvement in the personal security of average Iraqis, will the removal of Zarqawi indicate that while his killings were spectacular in their brutality, in terms of numbers Zarqawi's effect was marginal?

Or do you think his death will have a noticeable impact on security in Iraq, thus building support for continuing the war?

Dana Priest: You've phrased the questions very well indeed. If his death is followed sometime soon (I'm talking two months at most) by a drop-off in violence, then I can see the support for the Iraq deployment grow--with the hope that we've turned a real corner (along with the standing up of a new government and improvement of Iraqi self-capacity). On the other hand, if there's no improvement, wouldn't that signify that the Iraqi insurgency is even much stronger than we all suspect? That would be very bad news for the war, and for US support for continued involvement in Iraq.

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Laurel, Md.: Regarding the three Iraqi cabinet positions that were just filled by one person from each sect (Kurd, Shiite, Sunni), were those positions primarily ceremonial, or were they substantive and powerful positions? Why would a Shiite-dominated government make such a move?

Dana Priest: Not ceremonial. It would make such a move because to do otherwise would spell disaster for any hope of uniting the country.

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Grand Rapids, Mich.: What impact do you believe the way the administration has announced and promoted al-Zarqawi's termination will have on the ground in Iraq? Also, what is the point of the framed corpse of Al-Zarqawi? Is this a PsyOps tactic?

Dana Priest: The "framing" question is interesting only in that the administration's tone was incredibly different than when Saddam Hussein was captured and Defense Secretary Rumsfeld and others were claiming this would be the end of the insurgency. Much more caution now, and I think rightly so. The body was shown, I would have to believe, for the same reason the bodies of Saddam's sons (Oday and Kusai) were broadcast--as proof to the Iraqi people (and to insurgency supporters) that he is actually dead. Otherwise, it might be seen as just another US propaganda attempt.

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Washington, D.C.: Has anyone in Congress noticed that the Canadians were able to roll up a huge terror plot by electronic surveillance of chat rooms and email and managed to do it without violating Canadian constitutional and legal privacy protections? (That is, the law enforcement folks first collected the Canadian equivalent of FISA search warrants.) It's hard to believe that the Mounties are more capable of doing their job while balancing Constitutional rights than all our billions of dollars and highly trained personnel.

Dana Priest: Point taken.

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Alexandria, Va.: Dana, what are your thoughts concerning the lack of a true analysis of the crash of flight 77 into the Pentagon - particularly regarding the lack of any remnants of a realistic debris field created by a 757 in such a crash? Many people I've talked to agree with me that what little you can see of the crash tape released by the Pentagon actually appears to be a predator drone plane being used by military in Afghanistan and Iraq, particularly in relative terms of scale of the nose of an actual 757. It seems as if the NTSB took a vacation on this one, especially given that the impact point yielded a hole about 2 or 3 feet wide in the building, which would be consistent with a lot of conspiracy theories that the predator drone was used to launch an exocet missile. I think this tape is as mysterious and infamous as the Zapruder tape of the Kennedy assassination ... does anybody else find this episode very suspicious either in the media or the public at large? And what of the lack of any remnants of a black box?

Dana Priest: Oh dear, maybe it's time for lunch and we'll chalk this totally off-the-wall conspiracy theory up to low blood sugar.

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Duxbury, Mass.: An investigation by the European Parliament has said that data shows there have been more than 1,000 clandestine CIA flights stopping on European territory since the Sept. 11, 2001. That's over 200 per year or almost four per week. Does that seem like an exorbitant amount of activity or are there that many "bad guys" in the world that require undocumented, no lawyer, no jury, no judge, no trial renditions?

Dana Priest: That's a totally inaccurate number. See the Council of Europe's very thorough report on this, released just yesterday. I'll get it posted here:

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Bethesda, Md.: In the bloody civil war that's raging in Iraq, foreign fighters who fit the al Qaeda profile comprise a tiny (though highly publicized and perhaps disproportionately significant) minority. Several independent analyses have estimated this contingent to make up 10% or less of the insurgency. Yet, to read the continued propagandistic reporting in The Post, the hapless reader gets the mistaken impression that the insurgency we are facing are principally from the terrorist group that threatens the US. That notion is completely false.

How do you Post writers look at yourselves in the mirror each morning?

Dana Priest: I know a guy who needs a lunch date this afternoon. Maybe you could join him.

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Laurel, Md.: Is anyone going to get paid the $25 million bounty for Zarqawi? If not, does that mean that the USG acted on its own tips?

Dana Priest: I understand that, yes, someone(s) will probably get it, but that person (s) will never be identified, for obvious reasons.

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washingtonpost.com: Alleged Secret Detentions in Council of Europe member states

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washingtonpost.com: Council of Europe

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San Antonio, Tex.: Do we know what kind of bombing device it was that would leave his face and fingerprints intact, when the video of the bombing showed what looked like a massive explosion? I would like to know how it is possible to drop two very large bombs on him, and we still see his face with only a few blood spatters. Why was he not liquefied or blown into a million pieces? How is that possible?

Dana Priest: Well, the only thing I can think of is that he obviously wasn't directly hit, but was killed by the blast or by some other byproduct. That wouldn't be all that unusual.

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Richmond, Va.: Were you personally or the Washington Post asked to participate in the Council of Europe's investigation of the CIA's secret prisons and if so what was your response?

Dana Priest: Yes, they hounded me daily during their visit to Washington. I don't begrudge them for that at all, but I had to decline. Everything I could have said, they could read in the newspaper. I would be improper for me to have gone any further.

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Hampton, Va.: Dana, about the low blood sugar person - one of my family, up by the Navy Annex, saw the 757 airliner fly by them to the Pentagon. And the fireball. These people are either disconnected, or just yanking our chain. Enough said.

Dana Priest: Disconnected, I'm afraid. You're so diplomatic!

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Dana Priest: Thanks everyone for joining me. Hope to have you back next week. This will certainly be an interesting week in Iraq.

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