Those Who Have Targeted Al Qaeda Over The Years Are Now Coming Out Of The Shadows

Michael G. Vickers, once a Green Beret and a C.I.A. operative, helped persuade a cautious Robert M. Gates, then the defense secretary, to go along with the raid that killed Osama bin Laden. Brendan Smialowski for The New York Times

Soldier, Thinker, Hunter, Spy: Drawing A Bead On Al Qaeda -- New York Times

WASHINGTON — Every day, Michael G. Vickers gets an update on how many in Al Qaeda’s senior leadership the United States has removed from the battlefield, and lately there has been much to report. Al Qaeda’s No. 2 died in a C.I.A. drone strike late last month, another senior commander was taken out in June, and the Navy Seals made history when they dispatched Osama bin Laden in May.

“I just want to kill those guys,” Mr. Vickers likes to say in meetings at the Pentagon, with a grin.

Mr. Vickers’s preoccupation — “my life,” he says — is dismantling Al Qaeda. Underneath an owlish exterior, he is an ex-Green Beret and former C.I.A. operative with an exotic past. His title is under secretary of defense for intelligence, and he has risen to become one of the top counterterrorism officials in Washington.

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My Comment: I guess Al Qaeda is now finished ... because Mr. Vickers (by revealing his face) is clearly not afraid of personal blow-back. Still .... now that we know who he is .... kudos to the work that he and his colleagues have done .... but I (personally) would not be advertising it.