Her response was to say that the cooperation received from Pakistan’s leader Pervez Musharraf “wasn’t consistent” — but it’s important to remember that given the prospect of “political instability” in a nuclear-armed country,” there was a serious question about “how far and how hard do you push them, and potentially wind up with something worse.”

Townsend hastened to add, “I don’t say that as a defense. I say it to put it in context.”

She praises Gen. Ashfaq Kayani, the new Pakistani Army chief of staff, for attempting, as head of the Pakistani intelligence service, to push his agency harder against Al Qaeda.

“But I think that if there’s another attack in the U.S., there will be a great deal of fingerpointing,” she adds, “…and think it is fair to say that that will have to be, if attack emanates from tribal areas — as I think [it will] — it will be fair game to say, ‘Did this administration do enough to push the Pakistanis hard enough?’”

She starts out talking about the Afghanistan-Pakistan area — not known as a Bush administration focus. But she singles out two important plots — the 2004 attempt on the financial districts in New York, New Jersey and Washington and the 2006 attempt on bombing planes leaving from London — and says “both had ties back to the tribal areas in Pakistan.” If there’s a major attack on the U.S., it would link back there, so there’s “critical importance” to solving the Al Qaeda problem in that region.

She highlights the spread of Al Qaeda to “cities and settled areas in Pakistan, Yemen and Algeria,” as well as the 2007 plots against targets in Germany and Denmark. “Al Qaeda understands,” she says, “the importance of safe havens.”

This really stands as an indictment of the administration she worked for, given that it allowed bin Laden to escape from Tora Bora and invaded Iraq while Al Qaeda created a new safe haven in the Pakistani tribal areas.

Townsend reminds that Al Qaeda has linked attacks to political changes in Spain and Britain, though she stops short of saying that there may be an attack in the next few weeks. “Couple their understanding with geopolitics and their obvious intent to try to influence it with the current economic crisis.” Gulp.

“There’s some good news in this.” Well, there better be!

Law enforcement, for example, is far more focused on Al Qaeda than pre-9/11 and “we have a greater human intelligence capability, particularly in the regions” she’s outlined.

Townsend finishes up by worrying about counterterrorism “complacency” in the next administration — and while she says the point stands “regardless of who’s elected” it’s pretty obviously a dig at Sen. Barack Obama.

Somehow, though, she doesn’t apologize for participating in the complacency shown by the Bush administration toward the Al Qaeda safehaven in Pakistan.