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.

What do you call a tsunami that falls on a deserted island?

A seismic event.

George Will's call for troop withdrawals from Afghanistan, which surfaced on Aug. 31, seems to fit that category. It hit Washington when the chattering classes were at the beach, toughing out stay-cations or busy putting their kids in school.

So let's take another look.

Already wrestling with a renewed controversy over contract killers, the CIA reacted angrily Thursday to a news organization's revelation of yet another secret interrogation center.

ABC News reported that the CIA had a secret site in Lithuania where interrogators grilled terrorist suspects,  "one of eight facilities the CIA set-up after 9/11 to detain and interrogate top al Qaeda operatives captured around the world."

CIA Director Leon Panetta told Congress about a counterterrorism assassination program run by the agency before knowing all the facts, a renowned writer on intelligence says.

The second installment of NBC's faux-reality, terrorist-tracking TV program, "The Wanted," focused Monday on a Syrian German whom U.S. authorities have long labeled a key al Qaeda operative.

But some intelligence insiders who have studied Mamoun Darkazanli's mysterious ability to stay out of jail wonder if he's really a double agent working for the West, perhaps the CIA.

The White House confirmed this afternoon it was withdrawing Phil Mudd from Senate consideration to be the Department of Homeland Security's intelligence chief.

Mudd, a career CIA employee who is currently the head of FBI counterterrorism, said the choice was his.

(For a fuller analysis of this case, see "Writing Was on the Wall Before DHS Intel Nominee Withdrew.")