The death of the Bush Doctrine.

I can't wait for terror-expert Dick Miniter and Putz and all the rest of the neocons to start screaming about how the Bush administration is soft on terror, appeasers, etc.

A secret military operation in early 2005 to capture senior al Qaeda members in Pakistan's tribal areas was aborted at the last minute after top Bush administration officials decided it was too risky and could jeopardize relations with Pakistan, according to intelligence and military officials.

The target was a meeting of al Qaeda's leaders that intelligence officials thought included Ayman al-Zawahri, Osama bin Laden's top deputy and the man believed to run the terrorist group's operations.

But the mission was called off after Donald Rumsfeld, then the defense secretary, rejected a last-minute appeal by then-CIA chief Porter Goss, officials said.

The Democrats should pounce on this.