News You Can Abuse

On Fox News Sunday, Bill Kristol recounts that in a 90-minute, mostly off-the-record meeting with a small group of journalists last week, President Bush "conveyed the following impression, that he thought the next president's biggest challenge would not be Iraq, which he thinks he'll leave in pretty good shape, and would not be Afghanistan, which is manageable by itself. ... It's Pakistan.

" We have "a sort of friendly government that sort of cooperates and sort of doesn't. It's really a complicated and difficult situation."

Time reports counterterrorism officials "say the best hope for nabbing No. 1 and No. 2," Osama bin Laden and Ayman al Zawahiri, "may lie in the capture of second-tier al-Qaeda commanders who know where their bosses are hiding." A recent CIA report "speculates that bin Laden has long-term kidney disease and may have only months to live, two U.S. officials familiar with the report told TIME. (A CIA spokesman denied the report exists.)" The Pentagon has "requested that Bush sign an 'execute order' expanding its authority to go after these commanders in Pakistani territory." But some in the Administration are reluctant to cross that line for fear of destabilizing Pakistan's recently elected government." The New York Times, meanwhile, says in an editorial that the "alarming resurgence of Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan makes it even more imperative for the United States to begin planning for a swift and orderly withdrawal from Iraq."

These reports circulated as trouble continues to brew both in Afghanistan and Pakistan. In Pakistan, NBC Nightly News reported last night, "a devastating suicide bomb attack" in the country's capital killed at least 15 people, "most of them police. Dozens more were wounded. The attack followed recent threats for revenge for a Pakistani military operation against militants." The AP, New York Times, AFP, McClatchy, Washington Post and Los Angeles Times were among other media outlets reporting on the attack.

In Afghanistan, meanwhile, ABC World News reported that "local officials say an American air strike accidentally killed up to 27 Afghans walking to a wedding ceremony. This was the second US attack in three days that allegedly killed civilians. US military says it has been investigating both of these incidents, and that only militants were killed." The AP reports, "The US military blamed the claims on militant propaganda and said its missiles only struck insurgents." AFP and the New York Times run similar reports.