HIGHLIGHTS A war overview

The latest developments in the war on terrorism:
INTELLIGENCE HEARINGS
CIA Director George Tenet defended his agency's counterterrorism efforts today, detailing its secret successes against Al-Qaida while acknowledging that it could have better handled some information on two future Sept. 11 hijackers.Tenet and FBI Director Robert Mueller appeared before the House and Senate intelligence committees, culminating five weeks of public hearings on intelligence failures leading up to the attacks.Before Sept. 11, he said, the CIA had a large number of reports that a large Al-Qaida operation was in the offing, but didn't know where Osama bin Laden's operatives would strike.
"In the months leading up to 9/11, we were convinced bin Laden meant to attack Americans, meant to kill large numbers and that the attack could be at home, abroad and both. And we reported these threats urgently," he said. "But the reporting was maddeningly short on actionable details," Tenet conceded.
OIL INTERESTS
U.S. counterterrorism officials believe Al-Qaida is targeting oil interests in the Middle East, hitting one tanker off Yemen and failing in an attempt to attack a Saudi pipeline and a nearby port complex.
Saudi authorities reported foiling a planned terrorist attack on a major pipeline this summer, said a U.S. defense official, speaking on the condition of anonymity. Documents recovered during the war in Afghanistan also suggested Al-Qaida was planning strikes on oil interests, another official said.
In addition, Yemeni officials acknowledged for the first time Wednesday that the French tanker Limburg was rammed by an explosives-laden boat on Oct. 6 off the coast of Yemen.
ARMING WARLORDS
U.S. troops are giving confiscated weapons and ammunition to warlords in Afghanistan, a practice that critics say strengthens private militias and undermines attempts to establish a national army.
The national army was envisioned as a key to the stability of the fledgling government of President Hamid Karzai, which is under threat from powerful local warlords and wields little influence outside the capital, Kabul. But many of those same warlords are crucial to helping America fight the war on terror.
"If you have forces that are in contact with the enemy, or subject to being in contact with the enemy, they need to have adequate weapons," Col. Roger King, the spokesman for U.S. forces in Afghanistan, said this week.