Senate Panel Approves Gates

Gates said the U.S. overthrow of the Taliban government in Afghanistan in the fall of 2001 led to a "metastasized terror threat from the jihadists" around the world. "Indigenous radicals in countries like Britain, like Spain and like the United States are in fact planning terrorist operations," he said, adopting a tone reflective of his past as a career intelligence expert. But he sighed audibly when Sen. Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.) asked how he plans to catch bin Laden. "The way we'll catch bin Laden eventually," Gates said, is "one of his own people will turn him in."