Bush Anti-Al Qaeda Strategy a Failure

[Doug]

WASHINGTON, July 17 — President Bush’s top counterterrorism advisers acknowledged Tuesday that the strategy for fighting Osama bin Laden’s leadership of Al Qaeda in Pakistan had failed, as the White House released a grim new intelligence assessment that has forced the administration to consider more aggressive measures inside Pakistan.

The intelligence report, the most formal assessment since the Sept. 11 attacks about the terrorist threat facing the United States, concludes that the United States is losing ground on a number of fronts in the fight against Al Qaeda, and describes the terrorist organization as having significantly strengthened over the past two years.

In identifying the main reasons for Al Qaeda’s resurgence, intelligence officials and White House aides pointed the finger squarely at a hands-off approach toward the tribal areas by Pakistan’s president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, who last year brokered a cease-fire with tribal leaders in an effort to drain support for Islamic extremism in the region.

“It hasn’t worked for Pakistan,” said Frances Fragos Townsend, who heads the Homeland Security Council at the White House. “It hasn’t worked for the United States.”

Read the rest here.

[Barbara Fitzpatrick]

Of course, she also said Al Qaeda would be stronger in Iraq if we hadn't "taken the war to them" - I heard it on the radio this morning. Thankfully the head of the House Security Committee rebutted that one (said, "Al Qaeda wasn't IN Iraq before" we invaded). Of course the WH has to say that, since that's the "evidence" for attacking Iran and possibly Pakistan. (What else could "more aggressive measures inside Pakistan" mean?) I think W's forgottent that Pakistan already has "the bomb".