This is a story that’s just starting to reach the big time after a weekend of simmering beneath the surface, but it’s extraordinarily important and deserves far more attention than it’s been receiving.
Juan Cole and Kevin Drum have written a number of informative posts on this over the past couple of days and I won’t try and reinvent the wheel. Instead, I thought I’d just borrow some of the Center for American Progress’ talking points to offer readers a summary of what we know so far.
Everyone no doubt remembers last week’s terrorist threat warning, in which Tom Ridge explained that al Queda has targeted a series of financial institutions in Washington and New York for a possible attack. The information was gathered, in part, after an al Queda computer expert named Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan was captured.
The White House, anxious to score quick political points off the Khan arrest, leaked his name to the media. This was a drastic mistake — Khan was actually an undercover mole for the Pakistani government. He wasn’t helping al Queda officials; Khan was helping catch al Queda officials.
The emphasis, of course, should be on “was.” After the Bush administration outed him, Khan’s efforts have been ruined and a key source for information about al Queda’s plans and activities has been shut down permanently.
It makes one wonder if Bush’s remark last week about how his administration “never stop[s] thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people” was really a mistake or not.
Initially, there was some question as to whether the Bush administration was directly responsible for the leak. Now we know for sure that administration officials did leak the Khan’s name — National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice admitted it over the weekend.
There was also some question as to whether Khan was still an active al Queda mole or if the recent arrest was simply the end of his intelligence-gathering efforts. Now we know that Khan was in contact with al Queda the same day his name appeared in the New York Times. As Cole noted today, the negative consequences were almost immediate.
The British MI5 was forced to have the London cell of 13 arrested immediately on Tuesday, fearing that they would flee now that they knew Khan had been arrested two weeks earlier. The British do not, however, appear to have finished gathering enough evidence to prosecute the 13 in the courts successfully.
It now turns out, according to Neville, that “Reports last week also claimed that five al Qaida militants were on the run in the UK after escaping capture in last Tuesday’s raids.” If this is true, it is likely that the 5 went underground on hearing that Khan was in custody. That is, the loose lips of the Bush administration enabled them to flee arrest.
Naturally, our allies around the world are once again outraged by the administration’s inability to shoot straight.
Now British and Pakistani intelligence officials are furious with the Americans for unmasking their super spy – apparently to justify the orange alert – and for naming the other captured terrorist suspects.
Pakistani Interior Minister Faisal Saleh Hayyat expressed dismay the trap they had hoped would lead to the capture of other top Al Qaeda leaders, possibly even Osama Bin Laden, was sprung too soon.
“The network is still not finished,” Hayyat said. It “remains a potent threat to Pakistan, and to civilized humanity.”
“It makes our job harder,” a British security source said. British officials denied press reports yesterday that several suspects were able to escape the net.
And, of course, security experts can’t explain such recklessness.
“The whole thing smacks of either incompetence or worse,” said Tim Ripley, a security expert who writes for Jane’s Defense publications.
“You have to ask: what are they doing compromising a deep mole within al Qaeda, when it’s so difficult to get these guys in there in the first place?
“It goes against all the rules of counter-espionage, counter-terror-ism, running agents and so forth. It’s not exactly cloak and dagger undercover work if it’s on the front pages every time there’s a development, is it?”
So, what’s the bottom line here? The Bush administration accidentally exposed a key al Queda informant, undermining our efforts to capture actual terrorists, and putting all of us at risk.
So far, the White House has not disputed any of the facts and has not offered any justifications for its incompetence.
Anyone who supports Bush because he’s a “leader” in the “war on terror” is helplessly confused. It’s the latest in a series of instances in which the White House is either leaking information it should be keeping secret or keeping secret information that it should be releasing.
And for crying out loud, why isn’t this on the front page of every paper in the country?