John McCain Derides Obama As Offering ''Confused Leadership'' Because He Would Take Out High-Level Terrorists Like Bin Laden

"Apparently John McCain thinks we need to fight a 100 year war in Iraq but he does not think we should act on actionable intelligence to take out Osama bin Laden and top al Qaeda terrorists. Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda's leadership escaped to a sanctuary in northwest Pakistan because the Bush-McCain war in Iraq diverted resources from the fight against al Qaeda in Afghanistan. Now John McCain says Obama's call to take out high-level terrorists like bin Laden is "naive," even as the Washington Post reported just yesterday that these operations have succeeded in taking the fight to the terrorists." Susan Rice, Senior Foreign Policy Advisor to Senator Barack Obama

"But we would risk the confused leadership of an inexperienced candidate who once suggested bombing our ally, Pakistan" John McCain, February 19, 2008

Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda have a safe-haven in northwest Pakistan because the Bush-McCain war in Iraq diverted resources from Afghanistan and allowed al Qaeda to escape into Pakistan. Apparently John McCain thinks we need to fight a 100 year war in Iraq – and threaten to bomb Iran – but he does not think we should take out Osama bin Laden and top al Qaeda terrorists.

FACT: John McCain refuses to commit to taking out high-level terrorist targets like Osama bin Laden if we have actionable intelligence about their whereabouts.

Barack Obama has said he would take out "high-level terrorist targets" in Pakistan if we have actionable intelligence about their whereabouts and Pakistan will not or cannot act. John McCain said this morning that he could not make that pledge, arguing: "So, the first thing you do is you don't tell people what you're going to do. You make plans, and you work with the other country that is your ally and friend, which Pakistan is." McCain's efforts led commentators like Joe Klein to wonder, "I hope he (McCain) retracts it and joins Obama in the effort to defeat Al Qaeda."

FACT: Barack Obama has never said he would "attack Pakistan"--he has said that he would attack "high-level terrorist targets."

Obama's statement of policy--in his August 1 terrorism speech--dealt directly with high-level terrorist targets like Osama bin Ladin and Ayman al-Zawahiri, not the Pakistani government.

"There are terrorists holed up in those mountains who murdered 3,000 Americans. They are plotting to strike again. It was a terrible mistake to fail to act when we had a chance to take out an al Qaeda leadership meeting in 2005. If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won't act, we will."

Obama has voted for hundreds of millions of dollars to support the Pakistani government's efforts to root out al Qaeda, and would prefer that Pakistan take action. But he will not stand by if he has actionable intelligence about high-level terrorist targets in Pakistan's northwest tribal regions: "But relying on Pakistan while we fight the wrong war in Iraq has not worked. Because of that policy, bin Laden and members of his inner circle who bear direct responsibility for the murder of 3,000 Americans are plotting new attacks. If Pakistan cannot or will not take out these high-level terrorist targets and we have actionable intelligence about where they are, then I would take action to protect the American people. I firmly believe that if we know the whereabouts of bin Laden and his deputies and we have exhausted all other options, we must take them out."

The co-chairman of the 9/11 Commission--Tom Kean and Lee Hamilton--endorsed Obama's stance just over a month after his terrorism speech, writing in the Washington Post: "Pakistan should take the lead in closing Taliban camps and rooting out al-Qaeda. But the United States must act if Pakistan will not."

FACT: The Washington Post reported just yesterday that America is carrying out the very policy that Obama advocated and that John McCain derided as "confused."

John McCain referred to the policy of taking out high-level terrorists in northwestern Pakistan as "confused" – even as the Washington Post reported, just this morning, that:

"In the predawn hours of Jan. 29, a CIA Predator aircraft flew in a slow arc above the Pakistani town of Mir Ali. The drone's operator, relying on information secretly passed to the CIA by local informants, clicked a computer mouse and sent the first of two Hellfire missiles hurtling toward a cluster of mud-brick buildings a few miles from the town center The missiles killed Abu Laith al-Libi, a senior al-Qaeda commander and a man who had repeatedly eluded the CIA's dragnet. It was the first successful strike against al-Qaeda's core leadership in two years, and it involved, U.S. officials say, an unusual degree of autonomy by the CIA inside Pakistan.

....Top Bush administration policy officials -- who are increasingly worried about al-Qaeda's use of its sanctuary in remote, tribally ruled areas in northern Pakistan to dispatch trained terrorists to the West -- have quietly begun to accept the military's point of view, according to several sources familiar with the context of the Libi strike.....

....U.S. military officials say, however, that the uneven performance of their Pakistani counterparts increasingly requires that Washington pursue the fight however it can, sometimes following an unorthodox path that leaves in the dark Pakistani military and intelligence officials who at best lack commitment and resolve and at worst lack sympathy for U.S. interests."

FACT: There is a high-level terrorist sanctuary in Pakistan that is serving as a training ground for al Qaeda, and President Bush's own senior military and intelligence community officials are contemplating action against al Qaeda.

The NIE in July 2007 warned of a reconstituted al-Qaeda leadership in Pakistan: "Al-Qa'ida is and will remain the most serious terrorist threat to the Homeland, as its central leadership continues to plan high-impact plots, while pushing others in extremist Sunni communities to mimic its efforts and to supplement its capabilities. We assess the group has protected or regenerated key elements of its Homeland attack capability, including: a safehaven in the Pakistan Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), operational lieutenants, and its top leadership. Although we have discovered only a handful of individuals in the United States with ties to al-Qa'ida senior leadership since 9/11, we judge that al-Qa'ida will intensify its efforts to put operatives here.

The Bush-McCain war diverted resources from the fight against al Qaeda: Substantial military, intelligence, and diplomatic resources were shifted from Afghanistan and the hunt for bin Laden to the disastrous war in Iraq. These resources shortchanged our efforts to bring to justice the people responsible for 9/11, and have left the American people less safe. As the New York Times reported last summer

"Throughout late 2002 and early 2003, Mr. Grenier said in an interview, "the best experienced, most qualified people who we had been using in Afghanistan shifted over to Iraq," including the agency's most skilled counterterrorism specialists and Middle East and paramilitary operatives.... "If we were not in Iraq, we would have double or triple the number of Predators across Afghanistan, looking for Taliban and peering into the tribal areas. We'd have the ‘black' Special Forces you most need to conduct precision operations. We'd have more C.I.A. We're simply in a world of limited resources, and those resources are in Iraq," the former official added. "Anyone who tells you differently is blowing smoke."