It looks like CIA director General Michael Hayden (and JCS chairman Michael Mullen) don't think that Iraq is (or should be) the primary battleground against Al Qaeda.
From Meet the Press today:
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GEN. HAYDEN: No. I'm not--or I can't talk about--confirm or deny any, any operational activity by CIA or any other organ of the U.S. government. But, but what I can tell you about is the situation along the Af-Pak border, the Afghanistan-Pakistan border,
which presents clear and present danger to Afghanistan, to Pakistan and to the West in general, and to the United States in particular.
MR. RUSSERT: Do you believe that's where Osama bin Laden is?
GEN. HAYDEN: Yes.
MR. RUSSERT:
Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, believes that there is--if there is another terrorist attack, it will originate there.
GEN. HAYDEN:
We believe so, too. We, we, we can see what's going on. Our--you, you talked before about intelligence and how good or ill we have been in the past. We've gotten much better against al-Qaeda, and, of course, tomorrow we should be better than we are today. So, you know, that's not an absolute scale. We have to keep getting better. But it's very clear to us that al-Qaeda has been able, over the past 18 months or so, to establish a safe haven along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border area that they have not enjoyed before, that they are bringing operatives into that region for training, operatives that, a phrase I would use, Tim, wouldn't attract your attention if they were going through the customs line at Dulles with you when you're coming back from overseas.
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