An amusing exchange from yesterday’s SASC hearing with General Petraeus:
MCCAIN: General Petraeus, an individual who is, I understand, a young Taliban leader named Masood. PETRAEUS: Baitullah Masood, Pakistani Taliban leader. MCCAIN: He said that he would orchestrate — he would arrange an attack, there would be an attack on Washington, D.C. How seriously do you take that threat? PETRAEUS: Well, I think any time there is any threat that could be against the homeland, I think you have to take it seriously. We are doing what the intelligence circles call the deep dive to determine the possibility of that, if you will. There are some questions about the capacity of that organization in terms of transnational activities. But I can assure you, and I just talked to a senior member of the National Security Council staff this morning about that and, obviously, everyone is quite riveted on analyzing that and seeing whether further we can find out about that. MCCAIN: Well, we certainly wouldn’t want to call it a global war on terror. I thank you. Thank the witnesses. LEVIN: Thank you very much, Senator McCain.
