The Obama campaign is holding a media call right now on the New York Times
article about Al Qaeda flourishing happily in Pakistan, and George W. Bush's administration backing off on a Pentagon-backed plan to get Osama bin Laden.
WASHINGTON — Late last year, top Bush administration officials decided to take a step they had long resisted. They drafted a secret plan to make it easier for the Pentagon’s Special Operations forces to launch missions into the snow-capped mountains of Pakistan to capture or kill top leaders of Al Qaeda.
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But more than six months later, the Special Operations forces are still waiting for the green light. The plan has been held up in Washington by the very disagreements it was meant to eliminate. A senior Defense Department official said there was “mounting frustration” in the Pentagon at the continued delay.
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But more than four dozen interviews in Washington and Pakistan tell another story. American intelligence officials say that the Qaeda hunt in Pakistan, code-named Operation Cannonball by the C.I.A. in 2006, was often undermined by bitter disagreements within the Bush administration and within the C.I.A., including about whether American commandos should launch ground raids inside the tribal areas.
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Current and former military and intelligence officials said that the war in Iraq consistently diverted resources and high-level attention from the tribal areas. When American military and intelligence officials requested additional Predator drones to survey the tribal areas, they were told no drones were available because they had been sent to Iraq.
The Obama campaign is going to attack the continual of the war in Iraq as 'taking our eyes off the ball' on Osama bin Laden in Pakistan. The aampaign release says they plan to say McCain will continue President Bush’s policies in Iraq, “which have distracted us from pursuing Al Qaeda.” This is the start of a good offensive by the Obama campaign today.
EDIT: And Obama campaign foreign policy spokeswoman, Susan Rice, said, "The report “just confirms Obama has had all the right judgments about fighting terrorism and McCain has made the wrong ones.”