Bush Administration blows cover of a double agent

[Silicon]

http://www.juancole.com/2004_08_01_juancole_archive.html#10920310314346638 2


Bush Administration outing of Khan Enabled 5 al-Qaeda Cell Members to Escape Capture




The Bush administration revealed Khan's name to US journalists on Sunday August 1 on background, and it appeared in the US press on Monday. The Bush administration thus effectively outed Khan as a double agent (he sent emails to his London contacts as late as Monday).

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.


Not good.


At least this one doesn't seem like some deliberate revenge like the Plame outing.

[Grammatron]

I could not find any other source claiming the Bush thing has led to UK arrests.

However, there seem to be a cath-22 going on here when it comes to information. Do you keep the whole thing secret and people complain that government is not telling them what it's doing or why it's doing it or do you release information and cause things like this to happen?

[Hutch]

If this bears out....it's on CNN.com, but I'll give it the 48-hr lookover...and the Administration blew a sting operation to look good in increasing the Threat Level--or conversely, didn't have a clue that Pakistan and England were keeping it secret to catch the other fish....

....Well, that's either negligence on a nearly criminal level or a massive lack of communication by our Security/Executive Office.

Keep an eye on this--it will probably blow over in a day or so but has the capability to become a major scandal, either in the US or overseas.

Edited to add CNN (http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/asiapcf/08/09/terror.wrap/index.html) link here.

[evildave]

A quick Google news search turns these up....

Senator Asks White House to Explain Khan Leak
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=5913350

US denies bungling al-Qaeda case
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3548678.stm

Captured terror suspect not Canadian, Ottawa says
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20040809.wkhan0809/BNStory/National/

Who 'Outed' Mohammad Naeem Noor Khan?
http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=3271

Of course, I mentioned this in the 'Orange Alert' topic, but nobody nibbled....
http://www.randi.org/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&threadid=43895


Oh well. Politics wins over police work, every time.

[Silicon]

Here's the link to the UK arrests, from the story linked by hutch.


http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/europe/08/08/terror.arrests/index.html


I agree, 48-hour rule seems prudent.

[Silicon]

Originally posted by Grammatron

However, there seem to be a cath-22 going on here when it comes to information. Do you keep the whole thing secret and people complain that government is not telling them what it's doing or why it's doing it or do you release information and cause things like this to happen?


Or you COULD tell a ranking democrat in Congress with security clearance, and let them say "They have new information which I have seen and is credible," rather than showing that information directly to the press.

[NoZed Avenger]

Questioning from slate:

http://slate.msn.com/id/2104926/

Anything after this, one way or the other?


If an administration official leaked this, they need to be fired and prosecuted.


Edited to add a quote:
As both the Globe and Juan Cole note, the transcript of the background briefing given by U.S. officials on August 1 does not contain Khan's name. What evidence is there, then, that Bush administration officials, as opposed to Pakistanis, were the negligent parties here? Well, there's Condi Rice's oafish interview with Wolf Blitzer, in which she seems to be saying that the Administration gave out Khan's name on background. But her office now denies this is what she meant, and it's possible she was just being exceptionally clumsy. There's also the Reuters report, cited earlier, which says that "Pakistani sources" blame U.S. officials. But couldn't the Pakistanis be trying to divert the blame to the Americans? More important, note that even these Pakistani sources, according to Reuters, say that the Bush administration "confirmed" Khan's name, not that the Bushies are the ones who leaked it in the first place. It seems entirely possible that once Khan's name was out in Monday's NYT-- and Khan had been moved to a safe house--Bush administration officials felt there was no point in sticking with their refusal to confirm his name. (That scenario jibes with this earlier Reuters report.)




Developing . . .

[zakur]

Outing mole a blunder: Experts (http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1091919306561&call_pageid=968332188854&col=968350060724) (Aug. 8, 2004)The whole thing smacks of either incompetence or worse," said Tim Ripley, a security expert who writes for Jane's Defence 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-terrorism, running agents and so forth."

[...]

Rolf Tophoven, head of the Institute for Terrorism Research and Security Policy in Essen, Germany, said allowing Khan's name to become public was "very unclever."

"If it is correct, then I would say it's another debacle of the American intelligence community. Maybe other serious sources could have been detected or guys could have been captured in the future" if Khan's identity had been protected, he said.The administration has an out, though. They can just blame those commies over at the New York Times.