More Safe Or Less Safe Over The Last Five Years...

According to the CIA...

In five years, more than 5,000 terrorists have been captured or killed. Al-Qa'ida's core operational leadership has been decimated, and their successors are in hiding or on the run.

Would you consider this to be a failure or success?

I have heard many opinions that the US is less safe than it was five years ago. Since there has not had another attack by al-Qaeda on US soil and if there are 5,000 less terrorists than five years ago, how does one figure that the US is less safe. Is it because more terrorists have been created due to changes on US policies since 9/11 and this totals more than the 5,000? Or has their been less with greater competence or more with less competence?

I have heard and read this 'less safe' hypothesis only supported with the belief that we are creating more terrorists than we are killing. So is there some hard data to support this?

One can argue that Iraq has created more terrorists than 5,000 but are they local insurgents or global jihadists? If they are global jihadists, then the 5,000 number is way too low and there have been 10's of thousands more jihadists killed than the 5,000 number.