These type of intelligence assessments are always changing, but
this report from the Washington Post is quite encouraging:
Less than a year after his agency warned of new
threats from a resurgent al-Qaeda, CIA Director Michael V. Hayden
now portrays the terrorist movement as essentially defeated in Iraq
and Saudi Arabia and on the defensive throughout much of the rest
of the world, including in its presumed haven along the
Afghanistan-Pakistan border.
The most positive development in the War on Terror over the past
year and a half or so, has been the utter rejection of Al Qaeda’s
vision for the world within the Islamic community, as evidenced
most dramatically by the willingness of Iraqi Sunnis to ally
themselves with the U.S. over Al Qaeda.
