Top US official signals end to war against al-Qaeda

The United States must prepare for a time when it no longer is at war with al-Qaeda, and when sweeping federal powers ushered in after the September 11, 2001 attacks come to an end, the Pentagon's top lawyer said.
The address by Pentagon general counsel Jeh Johnson marked the first time a senior US official publicly raised the possibility of an end to the so-called "war on terror," launched by former president George W Bush in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington.
The terror network, which is under steady pressure, eventually will become so weak that it would no longer will make sense to maintain a legal framework for all-out war, Johnson said in remarks delivered at the Oxford Union in Britain.
Johnson's, considered a possible candidate to become the next US attorney general, speech also signaled a possible path to closing the controversial prison at Guantanamo, since the legal rationale for holding detainees would no longer apply once the war was declared over.