PANETTA: I think what's happened is that the more we put pressure on the Al Qaida leadership in the tribal areas in Pakistan -- and I would say that as a result of our operations, that the Taliban leadership is probably at its weakest point since 9/11 and their escape from Afghanistan into Pakistan. Having said that, they clearly are continuing to plan, continuing to try to attack this country, and they are using other ways to do it.
TAPPER: Al Qaida you're talking about.
Now, it is possible that CIA Chief Leon Panetta is using precise language to conceal a commonly oversimplified point. After all, while Hizb-e Islami warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar--often referred to in the popular press as a member of the "Taliban leadership"--is doing reasonably well for himslef, this only serves to underscore Panetta's shrewdly concealed revelation that Hekmatyar, after hostilely opposing Mullah Mohammad Omar's original Taliban movement in the 90s and only loosely allying himself with the broader anti-NATO campaigns of the new American century, is in fact not actually a member of anything that can be plausibly defined as a united "Taliban leadership" and can thus be doing just as nicely as he pleases. Perhaps if Panetta would lay this out a little more clearly when addressing a lay Sunday morning audience, his interlocutor would not be forced to question whether the Director of the CIA just used "Taliban" as an interchangeable synonym for "Al Qaida."
