CIA Chief Says U.S. Has al-Qaeda on the Run in Pakistan

Stepped-up attacks against al-Qaeda in Pakistan's tribal regions have disrupted the terrorist network and forced its leaders to retreat to deeper hiding places, CIA Director Leon Panetta says.

Panetta, in an interview with the Washington Post, said the coordinated attacks in cooperation with the Pakistani government constitute "the most aggressive operation that the CIA has been involved in it its history."

The agency chief said one intercepted message revealed an al-Qaeda lieutenant pleading with Osama bin Laden to provide leadership.

"It is pretty clear from all the intelligence we are getting that they are having a very difficult time putting together any kind of command and control, that they are scrambling. And we really do have them on the run," he said. The U.S. has used unmanned drones to take out some al-Qaeda commanders with missile attacks.

Panetta's burst of optimism may well be warranted, but it should, in fairness, be measured against past claims that the U.S. was closing in on Bin Laden and his allies. In 2005, then-CIA Director Porter J. Goss said, "I have an excellent idea of where [bin Laden] is." And former President George W. Bush vowed in 2001 that bin Laden would be captured or killed. But the man behind the 9/11 attacks remains at large.