CIA Director Michael Hayden says considerable progress has been made against al Qaida, which he portrays as still dangerous but on the defensive around the world.

Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-WV, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, begs to differ.

Though this tiff emerged late last week, it did not receive much attention. So Nukes and Spooks thought we'd give it some more.

Rockefeller wrote to Hayden to say he is "surprised and troubled" by a May 29 article in the Washington Post that quoted the nation's top spy as saying in an interview that "on balance, we are doing pretty well" against Osama bin Laden's terrorist network.

"The positions attributed to you are not consistent with assessments that have been provided to the Senate Intelligence Committee over the past year," Rockefeller told Hayden in the May 30 letter. "If the Intelligence Community's assessment of al Qaida has changed, I would expect the committee to be made aware of these changes immediately."

In the interview timed to coincide with the end of his second year at the CIA helm, Hayden asserted that al Qaida in Iraq has suffered a "near strategic defeat," the terrorist network has been dealt a similar drubbing in Saudi Arabia and has received "significant setbacks" around the globe because it is losing the battle for Muslim hearts and minds.

Moreover, Hayden said that the U.S. "ability to kill and capture members of al Qaida" has kept the organization "off balance" in its suspected chief safe haven in Pakistan's remote tribal region bordering Afghanistan.

Still, he said, bin Laden's followers continue to pose a dangerous threat and the CIA "remains worried" by what he contends is public complacency about the danger.

Rockefeller responded by listing a series of public reports and testimony by senior U.S. intelligence officials warning that al Qaida remains the most dangerous terrorist threat to the United States.

He also took aim at what appeared to be Hayden's implicit criticism of efforts in the Democrat-controlled Congress to pass a law prohibiting the CIA from using the controversial detainee interrogation technique known as water-boarding, deemed legal by the Bush administration but denounced by many experts as torture.

"If you view this effort as a focus on tactics, then you have failed to recognize that this program has done far more damage to our national security than any purported benefit it has provided," chided Rockefeller.

Finally, Rockefeller wondered whether Hayden is encouraging the very public complacency he worries about by giving upbeat assessments of al Qaida's threat, and questioned the timing of the CIA director's interview, an apparent reference to the possibility it could become a political football in the presidential campaign.

The committee, at least as of today, had not received a response from Hayden.

But the CIA appears to believe that the chairman went off somewhat half-cocked.

"Had the senator's office waited for a response from us before publicly releasing its letter, this could have been handled with ease," CIA spokesman George Little told Nukes and Spooks. "The director simply said in his interview that progress has been made against al Qaida, which remains a very dangerous foe."

No doubt the senator still wants to hear from Hayden himself.