Bush the Great Protector

My column yesterday was about the growing signs that Bush is pulling out all the stops to capture or kill bin Laden before his term is up -- or better yet, before the November election.

AFP reports: "The White House on Wednesday denied that the looming November US election had any impact on the hunt for Osama bin Laden and said US President George W. Bush -- or a successor -- will succeed.

"'That fight and that hunt will continue to go on until he is brought to justice,' spokeswoman Dana Perino said as the United States prepared to mark seven years since the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

"'This president, and I'm sure future presidents, will continue to try to track down al-Qaeda leaders. We will continue to try to find Osama bin Laden,' she told reporters."

And Ben Feller writes for the Associated Press: "The White House said Wednesday that the failure to capture Osama bin Laden in the seven years since the Sept. 11 attacks shows the limitations of military and intelligence power.

"'This is not the movies. We don't have super powers,' said White House press secretary Dana Perino. 'But what we do have is very dedicated people who are working with our allies and trying to bring (al-Qaida leaders) to justice.'"

Jonathan S. Landay and Saeed Shah write for McClatchy Newspapers: "Seven years after 9/11, al Qaida and its allies are gaining ground across the region where the plot was hatched, staging their most lethal attacks yet against NATO forces and posing a growing threat to the U.S.-backed governments in Afghanistan and nuclear-armed Pakistan.

"While there have been no new strikes on the U.S. homeland, the Islamic insurrection inspired by Osama bin Laden has claimed thousands of casualties and displaced tens of thousands of people and shows no sign of slackening in the face of history's most powerful military alliance.

"The insurgency now stretches from Afghanistan's border with Iran through the southern half of the country. The Taliban now are able to interdict three of the four major highways that connect Kabul, the capital, to the rest of the country. . . .

"Experts inside and outside the U.S. government agreed that a key reason for the resurgence is a growing popular sympathy for the militants because an over-reliance on the use of force, especially airpower, by NATO has killed hundreds of civilians."

Pakistan Watch

Eric Schmitt and Mark Mazzetti write in the New York Times: "President Bush secretly approved orders in July that for the first time allow American Special Operations forces to carry out ground assaults inside Pakistan without the prior approval of the Pakistani government, according to senior American officials.

"The classified orders signal a watershed for the Bush administration after nearly seven years of trying to work with Pakistan to combat the Taliban and Al Qaeda, and after months of high-level stalemate about how to challenge the militants' increasingly secure base in Pakistan's tribal areas.