A former top CIA counterterrorism official today questioned the central tenet of the war in Afghanistan, saying a U.S. defeat and Al Qaeda's return to a safe haven there would not pose a grave threat to the United States.

Paul R. Pillar, a South Asia expert who was deputy chief of the CIA's Counterterrorism Center in the late 1990s, argued in a Washington Post Op-ed piece that Al Qaeda's haven in Afghanistan was not critical to the success of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, and would be even less so today.

"How important to terrorist groups is any physical haven?"  Pillar asked.

School visits seem to have a strange effect on Condoleezza Rice's brain.

The former secretary of state and White House national security advisor has made more controversial remarks in the few months since she's been out of office than the eight years she was in it.

Last week was her attention-getting elocution on torture at Stanford. Now comes a transcript of her remarks on Sunday, May 3, at an event sponsored by Jewish Primary Day School in the nation's capital.

Revisiting the events of Sept. 11, 2001, Rice said top Bush administration officials were ignorant about al Qaeda when the terrorists struck the World Trade Center towers and Pentagon. 

Finally, reality caught up to the movies.

Americans have been waiting a long time for a U.S. Special Ops team to win one outside the movie theater.