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CATASTROPHE KEEPS THEM TOGETHER. Never let it be said that CIA Director Michael Hayden isn't shrewd. Knowing that media coverage of yesterday's Senate testimony will focus overwhelmingly on General John Abizaid's call for eternal war in Iraq, he discreetly dropped this bombshell about al-Qaeda:
Hayden said [al-Qaeda] had lost a series of leaders since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. But the losses have been "mitigated by what is, frankly, a pretty deep bench of low-ranking personnel capable of stepping up to assume leadership positions."OK, so on the one achievement that Bush can claim about the war against al-Qaeda -- the percentage of al-Qaeda's leaders killed and captured -- the director of the CIA finally acknowledges that the measurement is meaningless. The Post piece on that ran on page 22. Arrgh.
--Spencer Ackerman
