Investor's Business Daily, July 12th, 2007
War On Terror: The president reiterated at his press conference that Iraq poses the principal threat to U.S. security. But the elephant in the room was Pakistan.
A new threat assessment from U.S. intelligence focuses on al-Qaida's safe haven in Pakistan, not Iraq. A five-page summary of the classified report warns the terror group's leaders have used Pakistan as a secure base to rebuild their operations to levels not seen since 9/11.
Only at the end of his White House press conference on Iraq did Bush acknowledge the report, and only then to downplay its significance.
He suggested the media have exaggerated its findings, insisting it's "simply not the case" that al-Qaida central has returned to pre-9/11 strength. He says the report found that the group is stronger now than at any time "since 2001, not prior to Sept 11, 2000."
The distinction is hardly comforting. Against the recent testimony of Bush's top intelligence aides, it smacks of spin. Appearing Wednesday before the House, John Kringen, head of the CIA's analysis directorate, might as well have been describing al-Qaida in its Afghan heyday.
"We see more training. We see more money. We see more communications," he said. "We see that activity rising."
Al-Qaida's high command is now broadcasting more than two messages a week from Pakistan, demonstrating an ease and sophistication of communications unseen since its days in Afghanistan.
In fact, the intelligence report just delivered to Bush under the title -- "Al-Qaida Better Positioned To Strike The West" -- is eerily similar to the terrorism briefing the president received just weeks before the 9/11 attacks. Its title: "Bin Laden Determined To Strike In U.S."
Terror "chatter" from e-mails, jihad message boards, phone intercepts and human source intelligence is louder than in any summer since 2001, hinting an al-Qaida attack may be in the final stages.
According to ABC News, officials have picked up intelligence that al-Qaida already has sent a small cell of terrorists to the U.S. from Pakistan. Two years ago, al-Qaida trained British citizens in Pakistan, and deployed them to bomb London.
The FBI recently mobilized teams of agents to track down some 700 leads across the country, including 100 in New York alone. The White House is now meeting weekly with senior intelligence and law enforcement officials.
By all accounts, the system is blinking red, and all the warning signs point 15 Pakistan. Yet we're still told to believe Pakistan is an ally, not a threat.
In responding to a reporter's belated question about the growing al-Qaida threat from Pakistan, Bush glossed over its new host, citing neighboring Afghanistan instead.
He also argued that withdrawing from Iraq would allow al-Qaida to "establish a safe haven in Iraq to replace the one they lost in Afghanistan," ignoring the fact that al-Qaida already has established one in Pakistan.
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff also avoided mentioning Pakistan by name in remarks he made about al-Qaida earlier. "They have found some safe spaces in South Asia," he said.
But Kringen in his testimony did not mince words: "They seem to be fairly well-settled into the safe haven and ungoverned spaces of Pakistan."
His remarks echo earlier testimony from the Defense Intelligence Agency director and both the former U.S. National Intelligence director and his replacement -- all of whom said al-Qaida's leaders have found safe haven inside Pakistan, and that any new attack on the U.S. is most likely to emerge from Pakistan.
In a speech Wednesday in Cleveland, Bush again praised Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf as "a valuable ally in rejecting extremists." According to DIA deputy director Robert Cardillo, however, Musharraf last year gave al-Qaida freedom to operate in Pakistan with relative impunity. Al-Qaida's resurgence can be traced to that deal, he testified Wednesday.
What Bush claims is a valuable partnership with Islamabad is looking more and more like an unholy alliance. The central front in the war on terror is looking more and more like Pakistan.
