Trail went cold

Osama bin Laden's name came up for discussion among U.S. leaders Sunday on TV news shows.

The problem is, no one really knows where he is.

National security adviser James Jones said on CNN's "State of the Union" that the al-Qaida leader may split his time between Pakistan and Afghanistan. The best guess is that he is "somewhere in North Waziristan, sometimes on the Pakistani side of the border, sometimes on the Afghan side of the border," said Mr. Jones.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates said that U.S. intelligence on bin Laden's location is lacking. There have not been any reliable reports for years, he said on ABC's "This Week." North Waziristan is a possibility. But Mr. Gates said that "it is an area that the Pakistani government has not had a presence in, in quite some time."

Appearing on the same show, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spoke about the importance of killing or capturing bin Laden but stressed that progress could be made without doing so.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said on NBC that people in the region have told him bin Laden "moves back and forth." He said that al-Qaida could "flourish without him if we give them a safe haven."

The importance of having good intelligence is apparent.