Operation Cannonball is an American

Central Intelligence Agency The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...

operation disclosed in 2008. Beginning in 2006, it was intended as part of an effort to capture

Osama bin Laden Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden (10 March 1957 – 2 May 2011) was a Saudi-born extremist militant who founded al-Qaeda and served as its leader from 1988 until Killing of Osama bin Laden, his death in 2011. Ideologically a Pan-Islamism ...

and eliminate

Al Qaeda Al-Qaeda (; , ) is an Islamic extremist organization composed of Salafist jihadists. Its members are mostly composed of Arabs, but also include other peoples. Al-Qaeda has mounted attacks on civilian and military targets in various countr ...

forces in

Pakistan Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 24 ...

. There was reportedly "mounting frustration" among

Pentagon In geometry, a pentagon (from the Greek πέντε ''pente'' meaning ''five'' and γωνία ''gonia'' meaning ''angle'') is any five-sided polygon or 5-gon. The sum of the internal angles in a simple pentagon is 540°. A pentagon may be simpl ...

officials due to the ongoing delay and deployment of special forces units, as originally planned in the Cannonball program. The operation was reportedly hampered by conflicts between CIA offices, leading to large delays in the deployment of the program. Partially to blame for the presently failed deployment of the program was conflict among United States intelligence agencies, along with resources having been diverted to the

War in Iraq This is a list of wars involving the Republic of Iraq and its predecessor states. Other armed conflicts involving Iraq * Wars during Mandatory Iraq ** Ikhwan raid on South Iraq 1921 * Smaller conflicts, revolutions, coups and periphery confli ...

. The existence of the covert program, and its various internal conflicts, was revealed to the public by ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' on June 30, 2008. The ''New York Times'' article was said to be "exposing highly classified Pentagon orders".

References

{{Central Intelligence Agency CIA activities in Asia Central Intelligence Agency operations History of the foreign relations of the United States Pakistan–United States relations Osama bin Laden