Al-Qaeda's leaders have faced increasingly aggressive Pakistani military operations in June and July, a senior CIA official said as the agency came under attack for failing to combat the threat from Osama bin Laden before the September 11 attacks. United States intelligence officials think Bin Laden is hiding in Fazl's guest house somewhere along the rugged Afghan-Pakistani border. Military and intelligence agencies from numerous countries, but most significantly Pakistan as of late, have assisted in the search for him over the nearly three years since the September 11 attacks.
| After Pakistan's spent two and a half years saying he wasn't there... |
Acting CIA Director John McLaughlin has pledged recently that Bin Laden will still be caught.
| At which point the lefties will turn themselves out demanding that he get a "fair trial." A "fair trail" will involve demands that he be tried by the ICC, rather than in the U.S. because we have the death penalty and that's nasty. A "fair trial" will involve a team of 57 Arab and French lawyers under the leadership of Ramsey Clark, and can be expected to last for 23 years or until Binny's dead of old age or the U.S. has forgotten about 9-11, whichever comes first. |
| Old age. We won't forget. |
"We have pins on a map. We have reports," said a second senior CIA official, speaking of Bin Laden's whereabouts. The officials briefed reporters at CIA headquarters about a highly critical report released Thursday by the presidential commission investigating September 11.
| A nice fix within, say, two or three square miles would be nice... |
Still, Bin Laden remains elusive.
| "He's everywhere! He's everywhere! Fatwaaaahhhh Maaaannnn!" |
The commission's report detailed a series of strategic and tactical mistakes made by the intelligence community, including missed opportunities to go after terrorist operatives and thwart the attack. Even today, intelligence veterans have said the agency has no useful idea where Bin Laden is.
| In that case, they should hire me. I come relatively cheap. |
"It is the same as always. They have a general idea, but they don't have specifics. They can put a pin on a map, but that pin is going to cover 40 square miles, and there is no guarantee he is in the pin area," said Vince Cannistraro, a former CIA counter-terrorism chief.
| Carpet bomb the area, then defoliate using Agent Orange, and wait for more indications. Eventually there won't be any more indications. |
Federal officials have warned of a heightened risk of attack leading up to this country's November elections. The first CIA official said credible evidence suggests that Bin Laden and other senior leaders called "al-Qaeda central" are thought to be currently planning attacks.
And where might they happen to be residing? Iran, perhaps?
Other groups sharing the same militant ideology are plotting as well. "You're seeing parallel things going on. You're seeing the continuation of the remnants of the al-Qaeda that we began destroying over time," the official said. "At the same time, you're seeing organisations that took ideological inspiration, themselves trying to conduct attacks. That gives you a picture of the world."
| Ideology's part of it, but not even the major part. Financing's the major part. |
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