Despite the shortcomings, the United States will not carry out military strikes on its own inside Pakistan unless President Pervez Musharraf’s government requests direct support, said Dell Dailey, the State Department’s counter-terror chief on Tuesday.

“There are gaps in intelligence,” Dailey said during a breakfast meeting with reporters.

“We don’t have enough information about what’s going on there. Not on al-Qaida. Not on foreign fighters. Not on the Taliban.” Dailey, a retired Army lieutenant general with an extensive background in special operations, said the lack of information makes him “uncomfortable.” Yet the solution to the problem rests mainly with the Pakistanis, he said, who probably would consider too much US involvement as an unwelcome intrusion.

“We have to be careful conducting operations in a sovereign country, particularly one that’s a friend of ours and one that has given us a lot of support,” Dailey said.

“The blowback would be pretty serious.” Bush administration officials have been discussing expansion beyond small teams of US military trainers and advisers now in Pakistan.