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The resurgence of al-Qaeda was the Story of the Day--not because of any headline-grabbing attack by Osama bin Laden's organization but because the United States' top spies issued a report that labeled his comeback official. Both ABC and CBS led with the findings of the National Intelligence Estimate. NBC chose Wall Street instead, assigning its lead to its sister network CNBC as the Dow Jones Industrial Average flirted with a closing high of 14000.

There was not much to the NIE to warrant all that attention: the unclassified key judgments "run only a page and a half," ABC's Martha Raddatz showed us. Furthermore they only set down in writing what was covered by "days of leaks to the news media," as NBC anchor Brian Williams noted, broadcasting on the road from Los Angeles. Sure enough last week, ABC's Brian Ross, NBC's Andrea Mitchell and CBS' David Martin had already covered much of the material.

What was new was President George Bush's reaction to the official acknowledgment that his War on Terrorism is in reverse gear. ABC's Raddatz pointed out that as recently as last year another NIE had claimed that the US had "seriously damaged the leadership of al-Qaeda and disrupted its operations." No more. The new NIE finds al-Qaeda has "regenerated key elements" with top leadership "restoring their ability to direct operations." CBS and NBC ran one of the President's soundbites trying to mitigate the negative news: "They are not nearly as strong as they were prior to September 11th, 2001." ABC ran another: they "would have been a lot stronger today had we not stayed on the offensive."

Why have al-Qaeda's fortunes improved? CBS' Bob Orr blamed "a failed truce" between President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan and leaders in the tribal zones along its northwest frontier that has created "a secure place to hide from US and Pakistani forces"--yet none of the networks filed from Pakistan itself. NBC's Mitchell reported that the Pakistan may now be a starting point for a plotters' pipeline to travel to north Africa and then to Europe. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff told CBS' Katie Couric that "they morph, they begin to stretch into places like Europe, north Africa and east Africa." CBS' Orr, however, found "no evidence" either that al-Qaeda has acquired weapons of mass destruction or that it has inserted a sleeper cell of would-be terrorists into this country.

NBC's terrorist-related follow-up was an extraordinary Exclusive by Richard Engel from Riyadh. He showed us a Saudi Arabian version of Club Fed, a halfway house where prison inmates convicted of jihadists radicalism receive rehabilitation before returning to civil society. "Security is minimal," Engel assured us as he showed us inmates "defusing anger through videogames and soccer" and enjoying the center's four swimming pools, "even room service." A team of clerics and psychiatrists teach the prisoners that blowing people up violates Koranic teaching. The inmates include a former prisoner at Guantanamo Bay. Released after five years in USNavy custody, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia ponied up "$20,000 to furnish his apartment." And it paid for his wedding.

Andrew Tyndall 7/19/07 9:08:18 pm

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