corrente

I hate to say "I told you so," but "I told you so." Remember when we wrote about Bush's remarkable willingness (back) to reveal intelligence sources and methods in the latest extremely non-political terror alert? A willingness perhaps less remarkable when we consider the adminstration needed to dampen any Kerry bounce after the Convention.

Anyway, it seems like revealing intelligence sources and methods is exactly what Bush did.

The al-Qaida suspect named by U.S. officials as the source of information that led to this week’s terrorist alerts was working undercover, Pakistani intelligence sources said Friday, putting an end to the sting operation and forcing Pakistan to hide the man in a secret location.

Under pressure to justify the alerts in three Northeastern cities, U.S. officials confirmed a report by The New York Times that the man, Mohammad Naeem Noor Khan, was the source of the intelligence that led to the decision.

A Pakistani intelligence source told Reuters on Friday that Khan, who was arrested in Lahore secretly last month, had been actively cooperating with intelligence agents to help catch al-Qaida operatives when his name appeared in U.S. newspapers.

Monday evening, after Khan’s name appeared, Pakistani officials moved him to a secret location.

“If it’s true that the Americans have unintentionally revealed the identity of another nation’s intelligence agent, who appears to be working in the good of all of us, that is not only a fundamental intelligence flaw. It’s also a monumental foreign relations blunder,” security expert Paul Beaver, a former publisher of Jane’s Defense Weekly, told Reuters.
(via MSNBC)

There really seems no limit to the willingness of the administration to use intelligence for political ends; and no limit to the abilities to botch the job. The games of rotisserie WMDs. Outing Valerie Plame.

Now this.

Destroying an operation against Al Qaeda, our mortal enemies, just to send Waura and the Twins to Manhattan for a campaign photo op.... Unbelievable? All too believable.

The bright side? We won't have to hear any more crap from The Worlds' Greatest Newspaper (not!) about that MILF, Frances Frago, Bush's latest anti-terrorism czar. Boy, did she screw the pooch on this one.

Feeling safer?

NOTE 1 OK, I was wrong. They didn't have to torture him. That's because Khan was a double agent! When, oh when, am I going to learn to be cynical enough about these guys.

NOTE 2 Of course, there's probably a tinfoil hat theory that the Pakistanis are playing both ends against the middle in some way, here. Maybe OBL isn't on ice, and the Musharaff is on the line to Bush right now, explaining that if only Khan's name hadn't gotten into the papers, they would have had OBL in time put him on national TV in October...

NOTE 3 Thanks to alert reader Sovreign Eye.