Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden is 'quite likely' in Pakistan, the former vice chairman of the September 11, 2001 Commission has said.
He argued that Islamabad had done 'probably not enough' to help the US in fighting terrorism.
Asked to comment on al Qaeda's existence in Pakistan and if the country is allowing the terror outfit to flourish, Lee Hamilton said, "I think it's quite likely that Osama bin Laden is in Pakistan.
"We have a very different kind of relationship with Pakistan. They are doing some things to help us and probably not enough to help us. Al Qaida is much more decentralised than many people think, and I think what's really happening here is the radicalization of the Muslim world," Hamilton said in an interview on 'Meet the Press'.
"And it's not Osama bin Laden and his cohorts pulling the strings with regard to subway bombings in Madrid and London and now this plot on the airlines, but rather it's a highly decentralised operation. They prey upon these Muslims who are without jobs, who are angry at the West for all kinds of reasons, who don't like our way of life," he said.
"If you're really going to make the American people safe, it's not just a question of taking different procedures on airplanes, it is dealing with the fundamental problem of the radicalization of Muslims in the world today," Hamilton added.
Both Hamilton and Chair of the panel Thomas Kean, with varying degrees of emphasis, agreed with the notion that the war in Iraq is indeed a distraction, especially when billions of dollars are being poured into the effort.
"It's not just two wars we're fighting, we're fighting three wars, Afghanistan, Iraq, and the war on terror... if you pour billions and billions of dollars into Iraq, as we're now doing, and if you put most of your military effort there, it is clearly a priority for the administration and for the country at this point in time.
"When you do that, it means you do less things in other areas. We cannot do it all. We don't have the resources. We don't have the manpower," Hamilton argued.
"So the priorities that you establish automatically reject other options," he added.
But Kean stressed that the war in Iraq is a part of the war on terror 'in the sense that, if we fail, Iraq will become another sanctuary for terrorists'.
"There's not much question about that. If Iraq goes into chaos, that's the kind of situation that bin Laden and al Qaida like. So we've got to stop that from happening. So in that sense, it's a part of a worldwide view where we've got to get a hold of these areas that are ungoverned, where terrorists work," Kean noted.
Pressed on whether Iraq is a distraction especially in terms of resources pumped in Kean replied, "Any time you're spending a tremendous amount of money in one area... it distracts from another. But we think that the number one priority has got to be the defense of the American people. And that's this war on terror in the United States."
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