A scary headline out of the Middle
East this morning: "Al-Qaeda Increases Yemen
Attacks as Government Control Weakens." The Bush and Obama
administrations have been working with Yemen
to facilitate the release of dozens of Yemeni citizens held at Gitmo; Yemen's president has bragged about building new
repatriation facilities where the newly released detainees would be re-educated
and re-integrated into Yemen
society. All that was predicated on their being a stable Yemen society
where joining Al Qaeda was not an attractive option for these young Muslim men.
Bloomberg reports that the President's
chief counterterrorism adviser, John Brennan, held secret talks to
warn Yemen President Ali
Saleh about U.S.
concerns. Chief among them: the flood of radical young Saudi men who have
turned Yemen
into their safe haven. Additionally, an adviser to Saleh warned Yemen's parliament that Al Qaeda had infiltrated
Yemen's
intelligence and security services.