http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/18/washington/18intel.html?_r=1&ref=world&oref=slogin
By MARK MAZZETTI and DAVID E. SANGER
Published: July 18, 2007
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.

Banaras Khan/Agence France-Presse
Pakistan’s president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, in Turbat recently. His strategy in tribal areas has been criticized by President Bush’s advisers.
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.”

While Bush administration officials had reluctantly endorsed the cease-fire as part of their effort to prop up the Pakistani leader, they expressed relief on Tuesday that General Musharraf may have to abandon that approach, because the accord seems to have unraveled.

But American officials make little secret of their skepticism that General Musharraf has the capability to be effective in the mountainous territory along the Afghan border, where his troops have been bloodied before by a mix of Qaeda leaders and tribes that view the territory as their own, not part of Pakistan.

“We’ve seen in the past that he’s sent people in and they get wiped out,” said one senior official involved in the internal debate. “You can tell from the language today that we take the threat from the tribal areas incredibly seriously. It has to be dealt with. If he can deal with it, amen. But if he can’t, he’s got to build and borrow the capability.”

The bleak intelligence assessment was made public in the middle of a bitter Congressional debate about the future of American policy in Iraq. White House officials said it bolstered the Bush administration’s argument that Iraq was the “central front” in the war on terror, because that was where Qaeda operatives were directly attacking American forces.

The report nevertheless left the White House fending off accusations that it had been distracted by the war in Iraq and that the deals it had made with President Musharraf had resulted in lost time and lost ground.

While the assessment described the Qaeda branch in Iraq as the “most visible and capable affiliate” of the terror organization, intelligence officials noted that the operatives in Iraq remained focused on attacking targets inside that country’s borders, not those on American or European soil.

In weighing how to deal with the Qaeda threat in Pakistan, American officials have been meeting in recent weeks to discuss what some said was emerging as an aggressive new strategy, one that would include both public and covert elements. They said there was growing concern that pinprick attacks on Qaeda targets were not enough, but also said some new American measures might have to remain secret to avoid embarrassing General Musharraf.

Ms. Townsend declined to describe what may be alternative strategies for dealing with the Qaeda threat in Pakistan, but acknowledged frustration that Al Qaeda had succeeding in rebuilding its infrastructure and its links to affiliates, while keeping Mr. bin Laden and his top lieutenants alive for nearly six years since the Sept. 11 attacks.

The intelligence report, known as a National Intelligence Estimate, represents the consensus view of all 16 agencies that make up the American intelligence community. The report concluded that the United States would face a “persistent and evolving terrorist threat over the next three years.”

That judgment was not based on any specific intelligence about an impending attack on American soil, government officials said. Only two pages of “key judgments” from the report were made public; the rest of the document remained classified.

Besides the discussion of Al Qaeda, the report cited the possibility that the militant Lebanese group Hezbollah, a Shiite organization, might be more inclined to strike at the United States should the group come to believe that the United States posed a direct threat either to the group or the government of Iran, its primary benefactor.

At the White House, Ms. Townsend found herself in the uncomfortable position of explaining why American military action was focused in Iraq when the report concluded that main threat of terror attacks that could be carried out in the United States emanated from the tribal areas of Pakistan.

She argued that it was Mr. bin Laden, as well as the White House, who regarded “Iraq as the central front in the war on terror.”

Richard A. Boucher, the assistant secretary of state, acknowledged that Al Qaeda had prospered during the cease-fire between the tribal leaders and General Musharraf last September, a period in which “they were able to operate, meet, plan, recruit, and obtain financing in more comfort in the tribal areas than previously.”

But Mr. Boucher also described General Musharraf as America’s best bet, and several administration officials on Tuesday cited his recent aggressive actions against Islamic militants at a mosque in Islamabad.

The growing Qaeda threat in Pakistan has prompted repeated trips to Islamabad by senior administration officials to lean on officials there and calls by lawmakers to make American aid to Pakistan contingent on a sustained counterterrorism effort by General Musharraf’s government.

Some members of Congress argue that concern for the stability of General Musharraf’s government had for too long dominated the White House strategy for dealing with Pakistan, thwarting American counterterrorism efforts.

“We have to change policy,” said Representative Mike Rogers of Michigan, a Republican member of the House Intelligence Committee who has long advocated a more aggressive American intelligence campaign in Pakistan.

In an interview on Tuesday, the New York Police commissioner, Raymond W. Kelly, called the report a “realistic and sobering assessment,” but said it had not caused officials in New York to take any specific steps to tighten security in the city.

“There is no surprise here for us,” he said. “Would we rather it be another way? Yes. But this is the world, as it is, and this is what we are guarding against.”

Al Baker contributed reporting from New York.

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-Marty

1986 300E 220,000 miles+ transmission impossible
(Now waiting under a bridge in order to become one)

Reading your M103 duty cycle:
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Why would this be a surprise?

The administration is completely mired in the the quagmire of Iraq and has virtually no time to actually address the source of the terrorists..........despite the repeated claims that we are engaging this group in Iraq.

Nothing could be further from the truth and the strength of the organization continues to build in Afghanistan and Pakistan while we suffer repeated car bombs and IED's in Iraq.

The stupidity of this government is striking to me.

Stay the course, Lil' Bush

Can I join this thread?

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Of course..........where the hell have you been.........??

Jeez, read the papers dude, nobody denies Al Queda is not in Iraq, even the anti-Bush group says so, they claim we are in more danger now due to Al Queda in Iraq than ever. They do forget they were tied to Saddam, but that wouldn't fit their mindset.

And what quagmire are you referring to? We destroyed the Iraq Army in a few months. Rebuilding is up to the Iraqis and they don't seem to care. In that one respect, it is like Vietnam: a local population that has no self pride and unwilling to stand on its own and take charge ofits own destiny.

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MB-less

Tied to Saddam? In who's reality?

Yep, you and George keep up the talk about Al Queda and Saddam. When he leaves office, it'll be you and GWB...........and that's about it.........everybody else will have realized the folly of their ways.

If you don't see a quagmire..........well, I can't help you with that. I can't grant a vision to a blind man.

The Al Qaeda in Iraq, with the possible exception of a handful of individuals, is not the Al Qaeda that attacked us on 9-11, they are young kids so outraged by U.S. efforts to reinvent the ME in our image, they have sought out Al Qaeda as an avenue to take up arms and defend their way of life. If not for our incursion into their world, most would likely not be Al Qaeda at all. The real threat of Al Qaeda is where they have been for years now, enjoying the benefits and safety of their newfound altruistic relationship with the Bush administration, which needs them as justification for planting and nurturing the seeds of empire in Iraq.

tied to Saddam? . . . at the wrist and ankles?

What war on terror?

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Talk $h!t.

It's been well documented that OBL hated Saddam, who was a secularist. Saddam's ties to Al Qaeda were not large, a few Al Qaedians were in Iraq, I imagine Saddam met with a few -- keep your friends close and your enemies closer . . . .

Bush and Cheney have poured, at great expense, an enormous amount of fuel of the fire and have given OBL the propaganda coup of his dreams.

Who would'a thought: arrogant pompous ass OBL outwits the Dubya-meister.

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Te futueo et caballum tuum

1986 300SDL, 362K
1984 300D, 138K

I suppose they were tied together in the sense that they opposed each other.So, you think that it is the inferiority of the Iraqi people that is causing our problems over there? They are so ungrateful, don't you think?

As much as I whole heartedly disagree with almost all of the tactics used by the Bush admin after Afghanistan I also disagree that the war on terror is lost. We have not had an attack on US soil since 9-11 and many plots and attempted attacks have been foiled due the the excellent job the Border Patrol, Customs and Coast Guard have been doing to prevent the flow of explosives into the US. The gas pipeline attack was delayed because of the lack of heavy explosives, the Brooklyn bridge bomber was arrested because the FBI was on its toes, there are many more and many unreported incidents.

Blanket statements are irrational on a complex subject like terrorism.

OBL doesn't mean didly squat if he were to die or be found tomorrow the only thing that would be diffrent is the headlines.

Very good point,backed up by facts as usual.

Call me a capitalist bloodsucker but tracking the portfolio of the Carlysle group and associated public issue on a much reduced scale has not been uneventful,I'm sure to catch hell for this!

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