WASHINGTON: Al Qaeda leaders no longer feel safe in Afghan-Pakistan border areas, where they face heavy U.S. and Pakistani pressure, CIA chief Michael Hayden said.
Hayden's comments to reporters as he prepares to leave his post underscored a growing Bush administration confidence that al Qaeda's leadership has been crippled, partly by a military campaign that Washington does not acknowledge.
Hayden also said in the wide-ranging discussion he believed Iran was nearing a decision on whether to proceed with development of a nuclear weapon.
Hayden said a disappointment of his 2 1/2-year term was that al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was still at large. But he said bin Laden and top lieutenants were no longer secure in the Pakistan mountain hideouts believed to be hiding them.
"The great danger was that I’m going to use a little euphemism here -- the border region between Pakistan and Afghanistan was a safe haven for al Qaeda," Hayden said. "It is my belief that the senior leadership of al Qaeda today believes that it is neither safe, nor a haven. That is a big deal in defending the United States."
"What we and our Pakistani allies have been able to do have changed the equation there," he said.
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