WASHINGTON, July 22: A senior White House aide and a top leader of the Democratic Party said on Sunday that the US would consider using military force to destroy alleged Al Qaeda hideouts in Pakistan.

“Just because we don’t speak about things publicly doesn’t mean we’re not doing things you talk about,” said Frances Townsend, Homeland Security Adviser to President Bush.

Reporting on a related development, Boston Globe said on Sunday that the Bush administration was struggling to get congressional approval for millions of dollars in aid to a tribal paramilitary force for policing a troubled tribal region bordering Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Ms Townsend was responding to a question, asked during her interviews with CNN and Fox News on Sunday, why the US does not conduct special operations to destroy Al Qaeda hideouts.

“Our job No 1 is to protect the American people. There are no options off the table,” she said.

Her comments came a day after President Bush endorsed US intelligence reports that Al Qaeda had built a safe haven in Pakistan’s tribal belt.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Democrat, backed Ms Townsend, saying that the US should use military force to destroy Al Qaeda safe havens “wherever they are.”

“We have the intelligence report, which says Al Qaeda during this administration is stronger than ever. I don't think we should take anything off the table. Wherever we find these evil people we should go get them,” Senator Reid said.

Another senior Bush administration official, National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell, justified the calls for direct US military strikes inside Pakistan’s tribal belt by saying that Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was hiding on the Pakistani side of the Afghan-Pakistan border.

But both Mr McConnell and Ms Townsend also expressed the desire to first back Pakistan’s efforts to force the extremists out of the tribal region.

“Our first and foremost” priority is to work with President Musharraf for expelling Al Qaeda leaders from tribal areas, said Ms Townsend.

Both officials blamed a peace agreement Islamabad signed with tribal elders in North Waziristan 10 months ago for Al Qaeda’s resurgence.

“Because of this agreement, Al Qaeda has been able to regain some of its momentum,” Mr McConnell said.

“The leadership is intact. They have operational planners, and they have safe haven. The things they're missing are operatives inside the United States.”

In his radio address on Sunday, President Bush also said that the Waziristan deal had failed; President Musharraf recognized its failure and was taking “steps to correct it.”

Like her boss, Ms Townsend acknowledged Pakistan’s efforts to fight Al Qaeda.

“We should also be clear that we believe Pakistan has been a very good ally in the war on terrorism,” she said. “They get what the problem is. And we're working with them to deny Al Qaeda and the Taliban the safe haven.”

She praised Gen. Musharraf as a strong US ally in the war against terror, saying that the Pakistani leader had been the subject of numerous assassination attempts.

“Al-Qaeda's trying to kill him,” she said.

“President Musharraf is one of our strongest allies,” added Mr McConnell.

Meanwhile, Boston Globe reported that a $300 million plan to transform the Frontier Corps into a modern fighting force was a crucial piece of a new, $2 billion US-Pakistani counterinsurgency effort designed to wrest the region from extremist militants.

But this new funding request has run into resistance, in part because of congressional restrictions on aid to non-traditional military groups, and also because questions have been raised about whether the tribesmen who make up the Corps were friends or foes of the United States, the report said.

The Globe acknowledged that hundreds of the Frontier Corps members had been killed or wounded in battles with militants in recent years, but claimed that there also were disturbing signs of conflicting loyalties inside the Corps.

In May, a lone Corps member abruptly opened fire at a meeting with US and Afghan soldiers, killing an American and a Pakistani.