The White House on Wednesday released a 22-page "Progress Report on the Global War on Terrorism," reciting strides made in dismantling Al Qaeda and the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq, which the Bush administration has said was in league with Al Qaeda terrorists.
U.S. and allied countries have captured two-thirds of Al Qaeda's leaders, including Abu Zubeida, who ran the terrorist camps; Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who is believed to have been the operational mastermind behind the Sept. 11 attacks; and most recently, Riduan Isamuddin, or Hambali, who ran Al Qaeda's South Asia operations and is believed to be responsible for the bombing at a Bali nightclub in October that killed 202 people.
The government also said it has charged more than 260 individuals in counter-terrorism investigations, nearly half of whom have pleaded guilty or been convicted. And it has disrupted terror cells in half a dozen cities while denying "terror networks" access to nearly $200 million, the report said.
U.S. officials also say the military campaign in Afghanistan deprived Al Qaeda of its command and control center and the training camps in which it taught guerrilla warfare to tens of thousands of supporters.
Even so, the overseas-based intelligence official discounted speculation that Al Qaeda has been crippled by the arrest of many of its leaders and the destruction of its haven in Afghanistan. "While we have managed to shut down some things they are able to do, it simply means that they will pop up somewhere else."
Even the CIA's unclassified assessment of Al Qaeda, which listed successes in the terrorism war, is peppered with references to the terrorist network's capabilities.
While it said that "Al Qaeda's central leadership is at growing risk of breaking apart" and that the organization is "rapidly losing its cadre of senior planners who have access to and the trust of Bin Laden," the report also noted that Al Qaeda "has a large bench of middle managers and foot soldiers" who have been active in launching attacks.
'' "It takes only a handful of terrorists with little more than creativity, dedication and luck to successfully cause mass casualties," it said.
"To say we've taken out two-thirds of their leaders, it's pretty impressive," said Daniel Byman, a staff leader of last year's congressional joint intelligence inquiry into the Sept. 11 attacks, who is now a scholar at the nonpartisan Brookings Institution. "But they have had two years to regroup and they have."
