WASHINGTON, July 7 (UPI) -- Top White House officials called off a secret military operation in 2005 to capture senior al-Qaida members in Pakistan, The New York Times reported.
The mission -- in Pakistan's tribal areas -- was called off at the last minute after Bush administration officials concluded it was too risky and that it might jeopardize relations with Pakistan, intelligence and military officials told the newspaper.
The operation was intended to strike a meeting of al-Qaida leaders that intelligence officials suspected included Ayman al-Zawahiri, a top deputy to Osama bin Laden who was believed to be responsible for running the organization.
It was aborted after Donald Rumsfeld, who was U.S. defense secretary at the time, rejected a recommendation by Porter Goss, who was CIA director, officials told the Times.
Navy Seals had already geared up and boarded C-130 cargo planes in Afghanistan when the mission was called off, said a former senior intelligence official who was involved in planning the operation.
Rumsfeld decided the operation had become cumbersome and too risky after it expanded from involving a small number of military personnel and CIA operatives to include several hundred, the Times reported.
