President Bush’s senior national security advisers are debating whether to expand the authority of the Central Intelligence Agency and the military to conduct far more aggressive covert operations in the tribal areas of Pakistan.
The debate is a response to intelligence reports that Al Qaeda and the Taliban are intensifying efforts there to destabilize the Pakistani government, several senior administration officials said.
Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and a number of President Bush’s top national security advisers met Friday at the White House to discuss the proposal, which is part of a broad reassessment of American strategy after the assassination 10 days ago of the Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto. There was also talk of how to handle the period from now to the Feb. 18 elections, and the aftermath of those elections.
Several of the participants in the meeting argued that the threat to the government of President Pervez Musharraf was now so grave that both Mr. Musharraf and Pakistan’s new military leadership were likely to give the United States more latitude, officials said. But no decisions were made, said the officials, who declined to speak for attribution because of the highly delicate nature of the discussions.
Gee, I guess it’s not covert anymore.
The New York Times is simply the print version of Al Jazeera.
Oh goody, another Tar Baby to punch!
[i] Nothing but one-liners? [/i]
Oh ye of the Eldar, those who are wise in these arts do best to speak not their wisdom. Wherefore, then, shall lines multiply except from the pens of fools?
It’s stories like this that make me want to go back to the good old days of the Alien and Sedition Acts!
In 1943, a whole bunch of Timesmen would have had a very unpleasant interview with the FBI for this. They might have found paper harder to come by as well.
How anyone can read this stuff and be a 9-11 Truther is beyond me. We can’t even keep normal secrets; how could we possibly keep the one that 9-11 was an inside job?