People seldom admit their errors. Some might want to read this:
By Karen DeYoung
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, May 31, 2008; Page A10
Previewing the world for the next U.S. president, a top U.S. intelligence official this week predicted that the Bush administration would make little progress before leaving office on top national security priorities including an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement, political reconciliation in Iraq and keeping Iran from being able to produce a nuclear weapon.
A regenerated al-Qaeda will remain the leading terrorism threat, Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence Donald M. Kerr said. Pakistan's "inward" political focus and failure to control the tribal territories where al-Qaeda maintains a haven, he said, is "the number one thing we worry about."
Kerr's analysis, in a speech Thursday evening that he posited as a presidential intelligence briefing delivered on Jan. 21, 2009, contrasted with more optimistic administration forecasts of rapprochement among Iraq's political forces and a possible Middle East peace agreement in the next eight months. It also seemed at odds with CIA Director Michael V. Hayden's judgment that al-Qaeda is now on the defensive throughout the world, including along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.
Senate intelligence committee Chairman John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.) yesterday said Hayden's assessment, in an interview this week with The Washington Post, was inconsistent with recent intelligence reports to Capitol Hill. In a letter to Hayden, Rockefeller said that he was "surprised and troubled by your comments" and asked for "a full explanation of both the rationale for, and the substance of" the interview.
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The CIA defended Hayden's comments. [B][COLOR="DarkRed"]"The director simply said in his interview that progress has been made against al-Qaeda,[/COLOR][/B] [B][SIZE="5"][COLOR="Red"]which remains a very dangerous foe[/COLOR][/SIZE][/B]. That judgment should be no surprise to anyone familiar with the intelligence," CIA spokesman George Little said.
[url]http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/30/AR2008053002858.html?hpid=topnews[/url]
