Is the CIA director playing politics with intelligence?

As I pointed out yesterday, Bush appointed CIA director appeared to make some pretty unsubstantiated claims of success against Al Qaeda (in an election year) in a WaPo interview.

The WaPo runs this down and finds that the Deputy DNI, Donald Kerr disagrees, as do the briefings given to Sen. Rockefeller, the Senate intelligence chair.

Later: The AFP does an even better job listing the questions and questioners over Hayden's rosy assessment.

So, yeah. I would like to know where Hayden finds basis for his public claims of success.