It’s good to see someone following up on this.
A Democratic senator asked the White House on Monday to explain why the name of an imprisoned al-Qaida terror suspect was disclosed to reporters even as the suspect was cooperating secretly by sending e-mails to terrorists so authorities could trace their locations.
Sen. Charles E. Schumer of New York asked the White House homeland security adviser, Frances Townsend, to identify who provided to reporters last week the name of Mohammed Naeem Noor Khan and why Khan’s name was disclosed. Schumer also asked whether Townsend believed the disclosure had compromised national security.
“I believe that openness in government is generally the best policy, but the important exception should be anything that compromises national security,” Schumer wrote in his letter to Townsend. He cited press statements by authorities in Pakistan and England that the disclosure was harmful to their investigations.
Kudos to Schumer for recognizing the seriousness of this story. (Indeed, Schumer has a good track record on this — he was demanding a Plame Game investigation about two months before the national media said a word about the scandal.)
In other Wrath of Khan news:
In yesterday’s briefing with White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan, the press corps asked a grand total of one question about the Khan leak. When asked how damaging this debacle has been to our anti-terrorist efforts, McClellan rambled on with a few generic platitudes.
“It is important that we recognize that sometimes there are ongoing operations underway. And as we move forward on capturing or bringing to justice al Qaeda members, we need to keep that in mind. And sometimes we aren’t able to go into as much detail we would like to because of those ongoing operations. And I think everybody has a responsibility to keep that in mind.”
I’m not even sure how to interpret such ambiguous remarks. There was a hint of “we won’t be leaking these names all of the time” in there, but all in all, a dodge on the substance of the controversy and a dodge on the administration’s responsibility. And, of course, no follow up. (When a reporter tried to ask McClellan whether the name should have been published, McClellan ignored it and moved on to someone else.)
And finally, following up on Condi Rice’s admission that it was the Bush administration that leaked Khan’s name to the press, there’s been some confusion about exactly what Rice said. As it happens, some of that confusion rests with Rice herself.
On CNN over the weekend, Rice initially told Wolf Blitzer that the administration was not to blame.
“I will say this, that we did not, of course, publicly disclose his name.”
It depends on what the meaning of “publicly disclose” is. Literally moments later, Rice contradicted herself, saying that the administration had disclosed his name to reporters “on background.”
Rice seems to have no idea what “on background” even means. Josh Marshall set the record straight.
Here Rice seems to be implying that things discussed ‘on background’ aren’t for public release and thus that the White House did not in fact release his name.
But that’s simply false. White House officials give ‘backgrounders’ all the time, Rice at least as often as others. The information discussed in those briefings is very much for public use. The restrictions are simply a matter of identifying who is talking.
Once again, Rice doesn’t know what she’s talking about.