WASHINGTON (AFP) — The White House on Wednesday distanced itself from the US ambassador to Iraq's statement that Al-Qaeda on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border is a greater threat than Al-Qaeda in Iraq.
"The president is concerned about both, but I have not heard him describe it as prioritizing one or the other. Al-Qaeda is dangerous, full stop," said spokeswoman Dana Perino.
Perino had been asked about a comment from the US ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker, who told US lawmakers Tuesday that the group was more of a threat to US interests along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border than inside Iraq.
Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joseph Biden, a Democrat, had asked the diplomat to say which Al-Qaeda wing he would choose if granted the power to wish one of them out of existence.
Crocker cited "the progress that has been made against Al-Qaeda in Iraq, the significant decrease in its capabilities and the fact it is solidly on the defensive" and, when Biden pressed him, declared: "I would therefore pick Al-Qaeda in the Pakistan/Afghanistan border area."
At the same time, Crocker said that the group was "a strategic threat to the United States wherever it is."
Some foes of the war in Iraq say that the unpopular conflict has siphoned off military and financial resources better used going after the architect of the September 11, 2001 attacks, Osama bin Laden, who is thought to be in a remote area of the Afghan-Pakistan border.
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