U.S. strategy on al-Qaida not paying off

[Ahriman]

President Bush has shaped his presidency, and his re-election campaign, around the threat that announced itself in the wreckage of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001.

Under the banner of a war on terror, which he cast as a struggle with a "new kind of evil," Bush has toppled two governments, eased traditional restraints on intelligence and law enforcement agencies, and reshaped the landscape of the federal government.

Bush's strategy against al-Qaida and allied jihadists has stressed the "decapitation" of the network by capturing or killing leaders.

At least a dozen current and former officials who have held key positions in conducting the war now say they see diminishing returns in Bush's decapitation strategy. Current and former leaders of that effort, three of whom departed in frustration from the top White House terrorism post, said the manhunt is important but cannot defeat the threat of jihadist terrorism.

http://www.pittsburghpostgazette.com/pg/04298/400184.stm

[maddezmom]

1. * is the "new kind of eveil" n/t

[krkaufman]

2. Gotta like this showing up in a PA paper. n/t

[Nicholas_J]

3. Of course not

His entire middle east strategy is a mess. He has all but given up on a democratic Iraq and has stated that he will accept a fundamentalist Islamic Government in Iraq if it is voted in. And that looks likely with th Ayatollahs calling fomr all Shias to register to vote and to vote for the religious candidates.

The escape of Bins Laden and Al Zawahiri, who togetther have done more to make terroism a global threat tham\n either was capable of individually.

If there is another attack on the U.S. will be the people Bush let slip through his fingers who will launch it, not the Iraqi insurgents. Ifthe 130,000 odd troops in Iraq were pursuing Al Qaeda rather than Hussein, and tyhe war created insurgency,we would be much more free of the fear of another attack on a 9/11 scale.

The real question is not "Are we safer since Saddam Husein has been captured, but should be, "Would we be safer if bin Laden and Al Zawahiri were captured rather than Saddam Hussein"