The Raid That Wasn't

Is the media actually suggesting we ignore international law and invade a foreign country, even though it is an ally, to go after al Qaeda? The US has been having issues with al Qaeda/Taliban crossing the border from Pakistan in to Afghanistan, and Musharraf has been walking a fine line on the matter. He is providing some support for the counter terrorism missions, but not too much that it might cause those areas to rise up against him. We've been leaning heavily on him to do more to crack down on the Taliban and al Qaeda along the border, and have worked out a deal to allow US forces to engage in hot pursuits across the border.

Zawahiri is supposedly one of the targets in the mission that was called off.

A secret military operation in early 2005 to capture senior members of Al Qaeda in Pakistan’s tribal areas was aborted at the last minute after top Bush administration officials decided it was too risky and could jeopardize relations with Pakistan, according to intelligence and military officials.

The target was a meeting of Qaeda leaders that intelligence officials thought included Ayman al-Zawahri, Osama bin Laden’s top deputy and the man believed to run the terrorist group’s operations.

But the mission was called off after Donald H. Rumsfeld, then the defense secretary, rejected an 11th-hour appeal by Porter J. Goss, then the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, officials said. Members of a Navy Seals unit in parachute gear had already boarded C-130 cargo planes in Afghanistan when the mission was canceled, said a former senior intelligence official involved in the planning.

Mr. Rumsfeld decided that the operation, which had ballooned from a small number of military personnel and C.I.A. operatives to several hundred, was cumbersome and put too many American lives at risk, the current and former officials said. He was also concerned that it could cause a rift with Pakistan, an often reluctant ally that has barred the American military from operating in its tribal areas, the officials said.

This is supposed to be a hit piece against Rumsfeld and the Administration, but what exactly are the alternatives, considering that the NYT doesn't like when the US invades countries when we have declarations of war.

I completely sympathize with the members of the special forces who were ready to go into Pakistan and attempt to get Zawahiri and other al Qaeda in Pakistan, but was this mission going to have ramifications that might lead to Musharraf being ousted or cause an Islamist uprising in Pakistan? Those are issues that the Administration had to consider in making the raid.

UPDATE:
Ed Morrissey makes the good point that GOPers often accuse the Clinton Administration of bungling an attempt to get Osama when he was in Sudan and that the failure of the Bush Administration to do the same here requires the same tough questions to be asked of the Administration. I agree. I also agree that the Administration needs to provide details on the incident to determine whether the Times got the story right.