During the Friday night debate, President Bush has repeatedly stated that his administration has “caught 75% of al-Qaida.”
What does he mean by this?
Is this in any way verifiable?
Sorry, what he said was, “75% of al-Qaida have been brought to justice.”
He means that 75% of the known Al Qaeda leadership have been put out of business, either by being captured or killed.
Some critics --such as the CIA analyst who is the author of Imperial Hubris – point out that wiping out the leadership of AQ as it existed in 2001 doesn’t get us anywhere. In his words,
In short, the President’s assertion that he’s killed 75% of the known Al Qaeda leadership is like saying that 100% of the players on the New York Yankees of 1920 are dead, therefore the Yankees are no longer playing baseball.
No, that’s NOT the same as saying that it got us nowhere. In fact, your own quote shows that this is a very significant move. It’s just not decisive yet.
The funny thing is that the very attack on Afghanistan and the bad wiping up is the reason why the leadership isn’t as important … since AQ has ceased to be a unified organization. Now we have a lot of small groups with AQ “sponsorship” and little command chain you can follow or track.
Still you just have to repeat the 75% again and again to claim ObL being free ain’t so bad…
I hear he has an org. chart on the wall of the Oval Office and keeps putting an X through each member of AQ as they are captured or killed. Too bad he hasn’t updated the chart since 2001. 