So, the administration in sounding like a bin Laden or Zarqawi capture might not be in the near future as we have been lead to believe with all the hype surrounding recent advances by the Pakistani military and the announced US "spring offensive."
In a CNN interview with Bill Hemmer, she seems to downplay the importance of such a capture.
RICE: Obviously, if you can take out one of the most important leaders in al Qaeda, that's an important step, a really important step. But as we've said, al Qaeda is a network, and you have to break up the network.
We've already captured or killed two-thirds of their known leadership. That has been a blow against the organization, and the capture of a major al Qaeda figure would also be a major blow. But we have to do this systematically over time. In is no silver bullet to disbanding al Qaeda.
Am I reading too much into this, or does she then perpetrate the lie that Iraq had AQ connections?
Again from the same interview:
Iraq was an important supporter of terrorist activities. The al Qaeda are coming into Iraq, or the al Qaeda affiliates are coming into Iraq because they know that Iraq is a central front in the war on terrorism, and they know that when Iraq is peaceful and democratic and more stable and no longer in the hands of a brutal dictator like Saddam Hussein, that their evil designs are going to be seriously harmed by the emergence of a different kind of Iraq and ultimately a different kind of Middle East.
She does not say this directly, of course, but ...