Officials: Yemen a Bigger Security Threat Than Libya

From NTI.org (March 28):

WASHINGTON -- As the United States spearheads the attack against Libyan leader Muammar Qadhafi's military assets, key former officials said an even bigger threat to U.S. national security comes from Yemen, a country that hosts many militants and is now enmeshed in a civil uprising that is threatening to unseat U.S.-backed President Ali Abdullah Saleh (see GSN, Feb. 10).

Saleh has been a crucial American ally in combating al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, a group that chief U.S. counterterrorism analyst Michael Leiter recently called the “most significant risk to the U.S. homeland” and the most poised to successfully attack American cities (see GSN, Dec. 21, 2010). Former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and government officials said the current instability in Yemen appears likely to threaten already strained U.S. counterterrorism efforts and could provide new opportunities for AQAP to launch attacks.

“From a security standpoint, our interest in what happens in Yemen is much more significant than our interest in Libya,” Chertoff told National Journal. “In Libya it's a humanitarian issue -- there's some security issue, but really, Yemen is a critical issue.” [read more]

Well, that’s nice to know. So, is Obama going to do a kinetic military action against Yemen then? Who knows.

I watched Obama’s speech about the war in Libya and I did not notice any mention about an exit strategy. Are we going to take out Qadhafi or not? That’s the question to paraphrase Shakespeare. And by the way why wasn’t his speech on the CBS, NBC, or ABC? Seems odd.