Killing or capturing the group’s half-dozen or so top leaders in the next six months would “seriously degrade Al Qaeda’s ability to regenerate,” he said.
“We need to go for the knockout punch in this window of opportunity.”
The comments by Mr. Lute, a retired three-star Army general who has served Presidents Obama and George W. Bush, were the most specific public description of the Obama administration’s military strategy against Al Qaeda’s surviving leadership since Bin Laden’s death in Abbottabad, Pakistan, on May 2.
In the prelude to Mr. Obama’s announcement last month that he would withdraw 33,000 “surge” troops from Afghanistan by September 2012, administration officials described a plan to rely more and more on counterterrorism missions, many launched into Pakistan from Afghanistan.
Mr. Lute took sharp issue with remarks made Thursday here by Dennis C. Blair, who was forced to resign last year as Director of National Intelligence. Mr. Blair said that the United States should halt all drone strikes carried out by the Central Intelligence Agency in Pakistan’s tribal areas unless they were conducted in cooperation with the Pakistani government. Pakistan has repeatedly called for an end to the strikes.
Mr. Blair said the unilateral American strikes had worsened the administration’s relationship with Islamabad, which has plummeted to new lows since the Navy Seal raid that killed Bin Laden. He suggested giving Pakistan more say in what targets the drones hit and when, despite Pakistan’s record of tipping off militants when it gets advance word of American action. For that reason, Mr. Obama told the Pakistani government nothing about the Bin Laden raid until it was over.
Mr. Lute and Mr. Blair spoke at the Aspen Security Forum at the Aspen Institute here. The New York Times is a media partner of the conference.
Responding to questions from the audience, Mr. Lute acknowledged that the administration failed to anticipate the depth of embarrassment suffered by Pakistan’s military by the revelation that Bin Laden had lived comfortably and with local support in a fortress-like home near a leading Pakistani military academy for more than five years, and that American commandos swooped into their country on a two-and-a-half hour mission undetected and unchallenged.
“We underestimated the humiliation factor,” he said. That reaction has prompted Pakistan’s military to take several steps since the raid to recalibrate its relationship with Washington and distance itself from the Pentagon, including expelling some 150 American Special Forces trainers for Pakistani paramilitary troops.
Despite those tensions, Mr. Lute said the administration had shared with the Pakistani government the names of three to five surviving Qaeda leaders believed to be in Pakistan, including Ayman al-Zawahri, Bin Laden’s longtime deputy and successor. He said that both countries agreed that going after them was a top counterterrorism priority.
The C.I.A has conducted more than half of the 43 drone strikes in Pakistan this year since the raid on May 2, according to the Long War Journal, a Web site that tracks the strikes. That suggests a major acceleration of the effort, despite Pakistan’s complaints.
Mr. Lute’s comments joined the larger debate now roiling the administration over the impact Bin Laden’s death and the Arab Spring movement has had on Al Qaeda’s core leadership in Pakistan.
Some senior officials, including Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta, have said the United States is within reach of strategically defeating Al Qaeda in Pakistan.
Mr. Lute said that judgment was premature. “We’re not ready to declare victory here,” he said. Referring to the Al Qaeda’s operations base in Pakistan, sometimes referred to as “Al Qaeda core,” he said, “I’d rate Al Qaeda core wounded and impeded but not yet defeated.”
Source: NY Times http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/30/world/30policy.html