Bush administration in no hurry to battle Al Qaeda

In an interesting article discussing an admission of "failure" by this administration in the battle with Al Qaeda along the Pakistani border regions, I was really struck by the unimaginable lack of urgency.

Just last week, Michael Chertoff and several other administration officials were speaking of a "summer of threat" and similarities between their intel now and in July/August of 2001.

Today, in the wake of the NIE, we get a quote like this,

“We’ve seen in the past that he’s sent people in and they get wiped out,” said one senior official involved in the internal debate. “You can tell from the language today that we take the threat from the tribal areas incredibly seriously. It has to be dealt with. If he can deal with it, amen. But if he can’t, he’s got to build and borrow the capability.”

No hurry, guys. It's not like you're warning of an imminent threat.