Terrorists are still operating freely in Pakistan’s tribal frontier, despite more than $10.5 billion in military and economic aid from the United States, The Associated Press’ Anne Flaherty has the GAO finding — while Agence France-Pressefocuses on the watchdog’s view that U.S. counterterror efforts lack “coherence.” Al Qaeda and Taliban militants in that Afghan-Pakistani border face increasing pressure on two fronts and can be “squeezed” between the neighboring states, Reuters’ Robert Birsel quotes a State official.

Feds: There’s no evidence that two destroyed CIA interrogation videos contained info relevant to a federal lawsuit or covered by a court order, AP’s Matt Appuzo cites a CIA filing. DHS chief Michael Chertoff’s assertion of sweeping regulatory waiver authority is a legal and rhetorical windfall for opponents of the much-reviled border fence, The San Antonio Current’s Greg Harman relates. Senior lawmakers urge DHS to ease restrictions on grant spending on terror prevention personnel, Federal Computer Week’s Ben Bain relates. House homeland honcho Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., plans a series of hearings in May around the theme of homeland resilience, United Press International informs. An internal survey of about 141,000 of DHS’s 208,000 employees found that only 58 percent were satisfied with their jobs, AP’s Eileen Sullivan recounts.

Words of war: “Plenty of Pennsylvania voters . . . like what Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama stand for. They just don’t think the troops can be withdrawn anytime soon,” The Dallas Morning News’ Todd J. Gillman writes on the Iraq conundrum. The Dems are happy ‘to debate national security with John McCain . . . We are stronger on it, we will make America more secure,” BuzzFlash’s Christine Bowman has Sen. Joe Biden declaring on MSNBC. War with Iran would be a hard sell to the American people, The Jerusalem Post quotes McCain. While McCain said this week he would defer to Gen. Petraeus on shifting troops to Afghanistan to hunt Osama bin Laden, “this is not Petraeus’ job, The Huntington Post’s Moira Whelan hammers.

Poly-ticks: Obama was asked Wednesday about a 1995 campaign meeting at the home of a member of the Weather Underground, which bombed numerous buildings in the 1970s, The Washington Times tells. (This is the most “ludicrous political discussions of the last six months,” a New Republic blogger blogs.) “To my recollection no one, neither politician nor commentator, said [the IRA or PLO posed] ‘the transcendent challenge of our time’ or likened these minority movements [to the Nazis and Soviets],” a Tenerife Times op-ed takes off after John McCain. Neither Clinton nor Obama seem to see anything worthy of comment in the news of White House meetings on “harsh” interrogation techniques, BTC News notes. “We should only sit down with Hamas if they renounce terrorism, recognize Israel’s right to exist, and abide by past agreements,” The Associated Press finds Obama reassuring Jewish voters. Don’t hold your breath on the vice presidency, the Los Angeles Times has McCain, in essence, telling ex-DHS chief Tom Ridge.

State and local: ICE’s chief wants other states to copy an Arizona program that releases and deports non-violent, illegal-immigrant inmates, the Republic reports — while the Des Moines Register has the Iowa House passing a very harsh immigration bill. “We sent them a horse and the decided to call it a zebra I guess,” Montana’s governor tells The Liberty County Times of his Real ID standoff with DHS. Utah’s cost to implement Real ID will only be a fraction of the $11 million initial estimate, The Deseret Morning News notes.

Chasing the dime: “We shouldn’t be breathless and frightened. But the universe of potent risk grows every day,” the Detroit Free Press has Tom Ridge, again, alerting Detroit businessmen. Why would cybersecurity experts work directly for Uncle Sam when they know DHS can afford to hand out lucrative consulting contracts, The Western Star chides in re: Chertoff’s bid last week for IT mavens. “The War on Terror is now more expensive than Vietnam or World War I — but the dishonest way Washington is paying for it may prove costliest of all,” Reason reasons. With markets pummeling most pension funds, legislators’ rush to compel state pension funds to divest companies trading with state sponsors of terror is under fire, The Wall Street Journalsays. “Oil wealth often wreaks havoc on a country’s economy and politics, makes it easier for insurgents to fund their rebellions,” a Foreign Affairs essay asserts.

Bugs ‘n bombs:Suicide bombers conducted 658 attacks worldwide last year, including 542 in U.S.-occupied Afghanistan and Iraq, more than double the number in any of the past 25 years, the Postlearns from unpublished federal data. The man arrested Wednesday for possession of ricin had enough of the toxin in his Las Vegas motel room to kill about 522 people, the Review-Journal quotes the feds. Prominent scientists testified this week that a planned missile defense system cannot protect the country, AP reports — while the Post has the three nuke labs fretting elsewhere that budget cuts have eroded their ability to ensure the nuclear arsenal’s reliability. In a training drill, Wyoming police and criminal justice students used 10 pounds of explosives and four gallons of gasoline to blow up a Honda, KULR 8 News relays — while Roseville and Rocklin Today notifies of a multiple casualty incident exercise at California’s Sierra College Rocklin Campus next Wednesday.

Coming and going: The number of air marshals assigned to flights is so low that TSA has drastically lowered its testing standards just to qualify new hires, CNN reveals.A 74-year-old grandmother was arrested for battery at Palm Beach’s airport after refusing to be searched by screeners, The Palm Beach Postreports — while The Chicago Sun-Times has a bullet found on an airliner about to depart from O’Hare prompting rescreening of all passengers, and The New York Times sees an Orthodox Jew ejected from a flight before it took of from JFK when he refused to stop praying and return to his seat. Following a test run in Phoenix, clothes-stripping “whole body scanning” is coming to airports in New York and Los Angeles, CNN says. Unisys will be supplying access-control biometrics to the Port of Los Angeles, The Philadelphia Inquirer informs.

Courts and rights:Sami al-Arian, the computer prof imprisoned for more than five years on a single terrorism-related charge after his trial deadlocked, now faces either deportation or a new indictment, the Times tells. “What do you do when a guy high in the running for most hated man in the world teaches at your law school?” the L.A. Times blogs in re: U.C.-Berkeley’s half-hearted defense of torture-justifying tenure holder, John Yoo. “In a world where there is justice,” Yoo would be headed to the Hague and, “ideally, would be defending himself,” The Baltimore City Paper leads — and see a Post column. Justice is investigating whether its lawyers improperly advised the military it could use harsh interrogation methods under wartime authority, AP relates. An ex-Italian intel chief wants Premier-elect Silvio Berlusconi to testify in the trial of 26 American and Italian suspects charged with kidnapping an imam in a CIA op, AP also reports.

Over there: Al Qaeda’s No. 2 says in a tape today that five years of U.S. involvement in Iraq has brought only defeat, and said President Bush will be forced to pass the problem to his successor, AP relates.“I’d rather fight in Iraq for a century than declare defeat to the Islamists,” a Human Events contributor comments — while FOX Newshas a prominent imam declaring in a sermon that Rome, “the Crusader capital,” would soon be conquered by Islam. Three Yemeni policemen were killed and four wounded by a bomb blast at a military checkpoint, Agence France-Presse reports.

The Silver Scream: “If ‘Khuda Kay Liye’ doesn’t do a 9/11 in the narrative it’s because the director yokes his thought-processes to a vision that goes beyond aggressive propaganda,” Subhash K. Jha writes in a SantaBanta.com review of the subcontinent’s latest terror-themed film. “Where in the World is Osama bin Laden” (Warrior Poets) reflects “the standard Westchester County wine-sipper’s wisdom about the post-9/11 world,” Kyle Smith dismisses in a Commentary pan of Morgan Spurlock’s latest doc. Two of the four films rejected by Singapore’s film festival — “Arabs & Terrorism” (Quilting Point) and “David the Tolhildin” (Mano Khalil) — were doomed by “their sympathetic portrayal of organizations deemed terrorist organizations by many countries,” Agence France-Presse reports. For Crypto-Gram’s third annual “Movie-Plot Threat Contest,” Bruce Schneier announces, “the goal is to create fear. Not just any fear, but a fear that you can alleviate through the sale of your new product idea.”

Kulture Kanyon: Jailed Saudi jihadis “have been putting paint to paper” to process their post-Islamist issues, according to a Boston Globe look at “extremist art therapy” in the global movement to “deradicalize” terrorists. A seething dispute “has robbed people of the ability to come here with an open mind and experience the gentleness of the memorial,” a designer of the tinder-box Arizona Sept. 11 monument tells the Arizona Republic. Debuting in Troy, N.Y., “Art Does Not Equal Terrorism” is a doc about Rensselaer Polytechnic’s grappling with an art piece in which a jihadi video game was altered to show the artist as a suicide bomber and President Bush as the target, News Channel 13 notes. Brigitte Bardot is back in court, facing charges of fanning racial hatred against Muslims, The Daily Telegraph tells.

Have some pita with your Hamas: “Jimmy Carter’s Middle East mission of peace got off to a ‘promising start,’ the former U.S. president said, as he returned from meeting with prominent Hamas member Nasser al-Shaer, wearing what he called, ‘a lovely traditional ceremonial vest’ that the Nobel laureate received as a gift from al-Shaer,” ScrappleFace relates. “Returning to Jerusalem after the session, Carter toured a crowded marketplace wearing the snug vest which he said ‘must be made of some kind of expensive, heavy fabric,’” Scott Ott writes. “Asked if he planned further talks with Hamas, Carter said, ‘Yes. In fact, I expect they’ll call me soon to trigger the next round.’” Check, also, Onion News Network: “New security measures put in place to allay terror fears are threatening to drive suspicious package retailers out of business.”