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Not trying to be convincing, but Craig Henry makes the point at my place that this is the Pakistani intelligence service making the double agent claims (and to Reuters). Which is enough to give me pause before reloading, anyway. It’s not like the ISI have been proven to be the Wyatt Earps of the Middle East. They’ve been consistently declaimed as pro-Taliban and pro-AQ. Which basically means to me that there are at least potentially other reasons, besides the truth, for making the claim about the blown double agent.

Somedays, it seems like we’re living in a LeCarre novel.

I realize there are many within the ISI who love to play games. But some reports indicate this double agent sting was not just an ISI deal, it was the CIA: “Khan became part of a sting operation organized by the CIA after he was captured last month and agreed to send coded e-mail messages to al Qaeda contacts around the world, according to a senior U.S. official.”

Secondly, Britain provides independent confirmation by their actions in response; daylight raids they hate to do, but had to, because the cat was out of the bag. A dozen suspects might have otherwise disappeared once they heard their communications contact was busted. A dozen suspects who have since helped unravel considerably more evidence. And not only did Britain say they had to scramble to initiate arrests far earlier than they’d planned due to the release of Khan’s name, there’s this : “The inquiry has caused strains between the United States and Britain. There were signs that some British authorities might not have agreed with the White House decision to make public information about the surveillance operations. The news agency Reuters quoted the British home secretary, David Blunkett, as saying that there was ‘a difference between alerting the public to a specific threat and alarming people unnecessarily by passing on information indiscriminately.’”

Thirdly, this whole alert started with the partisan words of the Secrtary of Homeland Security : “I certainly realize that this is sobering news, not just about the intent of our enemies, but of their specific plans and a glimpse into their methods. But we must understand that the kind of information available to us today is the result of the President’s leadership in the war against terror.”

I want security and election year politics to be like oil and water, never mixed, never used as any kind of wedge, never compromising each other.

The evidence I’ve seen lately indicates to me the Bush administration can’t do that. I’ll be watching for more evidence between now and Nov. 2. And I will judge them on it.

“Somedays, it seems like we’re living in a LeCarre novel”

It reads like one of Tom Clancy’s worst, to me; the plot’s way too dense, the characters have shifting motivations, it’s about 200 pages too long … and I don’t think I’m going to like the ending.

“It reads like one of Tom Clancy’s worst, to me; the plot’s way too dense, the characters have shifting motivations, it’s about 200 pages too long … and I don’t think I’m going to like the ending.”

I really need to start a Quotelog.

And if you want to track the story back one more step, there’s this about the timing of the announcement of another arrestee’s name on the day of Kerry’s keynote, and how that trickled down to the Khan story:
—Begin Quote—
...some American and Pakistani intelligence and counterterrorism officials do question the timing of the announcement. After his arrest, Ghailani’s Pakistani captors, with assistance from FBI officials, set to work getting him to talk. While they had little initial success, a source privy to the interrogations says, “It might have taken awhile, but he would ultimately have broken down,” at which point Ghailani might well have shared information, such as the names of Qaeda associates, that the Pakistanis could have acted on. But, before that could happen, according to an ISI officer, FBI officials, who had initially insisted on keeping the arrest secret, told officials in Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf’s government that Islamabad should announce Ghailani’s capture. An ISI official explains, “When it comes to matters especially pertaining to Al Qaeda, it is always the U.S. administration that takes most of the decisions, while the Pakistani government simply plays the role of a front man.” This official and another ISI official believe that the driving factor behind the announcement was U.S. politics. “What else could explain it?” the second official says.

Though there is no policy governing how long to keep such arrests secret, standard intelligence practices dictate that the capture should not have been made public until investigators had finished with Ghailani (and the laptop and computer disks he had been captured with).

Indeed, Ghailani may still talk, but some current and former American officials fear that, by broadcasting his name around the world, the Pakistanis have reduced the value of the intelligence that interrogators can extract from him. “Now, anything that he was involved in is being shredded, burned, and thrown in a river,” a senior counterterrorism official told the Los Angeles Times. “We have to assume anyone affiliated with this guy is on the run … when, usually, we can get great stuff as long as we can keep it quiet.” Adds former CIA operative Robert Baer: “It makes no sense to make the announcement then. Presumably, everything [Al Qaeda] does is compartmented. By announcing to everybody in the world that we have this guy, and he is talking, you have to assume that you shoot tactics. To keep these guys off-balance, a lot of this stuff should be kept in secret. You get no benefit from announcing an arrest like this. You always want to get these guys when they are on vacation, when they are not expecting you.”

And there could well be leads to follow up, just as there were after the apprehension of Qaeda associates Musaad Aruchi in Karachi on June 12 and Muhammed Naeem Noor Khan in Lahore on July 13. Both suspected terrorists were captured along with laptops, computer disks, and maps indicating surveillance of U.S. installations in preparation for an attack, and their information led investigators to Ghailani – and contributed to the announcement of this week’s Code Orange alert. “There is not a single significant Al Qaeda arrest that didn’t yield us more,” a senior Pakistani intelligence official told The Washington Post. But the arrests of Aruchi and Khan were kept secret for weeks – until reporters started investigating the Ghailani capture.
—End Quote—

Well. Here’s a … sort of … response from the White House, in the form of an appearance by Condoleezza Rice on CNN’s Late Edition:

.—Begin Quote—
Rice was also defensive about the disclosure of Khan’s name, which has sparked criticism Washington may have jeopardized the effort to find al Qaeda operatives.

“We did not, of course, publicly disclose his name,” Rice said, adding that it had been given “on background.” She did not say when or by whom the name was first revealed, and said she did not know whether Khan had been cooperating with Pakistani intelligence.
—End Quote—.

OK.

How is “publicly disclos[ing] his name” different from giving it “on background,” when the end result in both cases is the name gets printed?

I’ll tell you the difference. One is done by an official willing to stand behind their statement with a name. The other is done anonymously.

And I also find it most interesting that Dr. Rice claims to be completely unaware of a sting that the Washington Post says was “organized by the CIA,” and had been going on for at least two weeks, likely resulting in some of the information she’s read in her classified daily reports recently.

Sorry, that explanation not only does not fly, it can barely even flap its frail wings. Try again?

Reid I liked your commentary when I first read it. I found this on MSNBC this afternoon. It states, to me, a valid reason why the feds released the info. Ridge surely made a political gaffe in the briefing though.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5636197/site/newsweek/

What’s crazy-making about this for us dumb citizens is that we have no idea what is real and what isn’t, what levels are involved and what aren’t, who was actually blown, and who was blown by accident on purpose.

What I can say is that it seems like we’re knocking the whale poop out of a lot of terrorists lately. I’ll take that, bad Clancy or no.

Thanks for that link, Jarrett, that’s an interesting and comprehensive look at the recent developments. It directly speaks to Scott’s point about “confusion” in the public over the alerts themselves. However, I found no cause for the release of Khan’s identity. In fact, it seemed in many places to speak to the opposing view.

I guess I should be clear. I do not doubt that there is currently a threat, based on credible evidence. I believe that when that’s the situation, the administration has no choice but to issue an alert. The Newsweek article makes it clear that on Friday, July 30, they had serious intel, and on Sunday, the alert was issued. All that seems prudent behavior.

What isn’t prudent (beyond partisan cheerleading by the Director of Homeland Security) is releasing more information than is necessary. And I guess you can spread the blame around, too. Start with partisan BS like Howard Dean’s claim the alert is totally politically motivated, followed by the media harping on that possibility, followed by some senior intel idiot(s) telling the press this alert is based on three year old plans, followed by the media harping on that possibility.

Before you know it, anonymous American officials on background are spilling Khan’s name, to show it’s a current arrest that brought the alert, and that it’s not politically motivated. Even though such an unnecessary spilling of the beans is .. politically motivated.

At some point, somebody has to say “No.” Somebody has to say “this alert is based on hard and current intel, but we cannot reveal it or we’d compromise an ongoing investigation.” How many times did we hear the military equivalent of that in the spring of 2003? “Operational security” took priority over media spin.

I’ve had a low level of anger over this the whole weekend. I haven’t read anything to diminish it. In fact, I see these arrests touted on many sites with no mention whatsoever of how we came to know Khan’s name.

Nevermind, if we need to.

I must agree, Reid. First and foremost, I’m glad I’m the journalist and not the government official. I often wonder how I would react if people were pressing me for info, instead of vice-versa.

Letterman spoke a lot on the four-year-old news this week. I didn’t know exactly what it was untill I read the newsweek article. However, the intel that was gathered four years ago would have been the same today. A few changes in traffic patterns have more-than-likely occurred in the financial district; but structural information will be the same.

More confirmation it was a US leak, via Juan Cole

[CNN’s Wolf] Blitzer then revealed that he had discussed the Khan case with US National Security Adviser Condaleeza Rice on background. He reported that she had admitted that the Bush administration had in fact revealed Khan’s name to the press. She said she did not know if Khan was a double agent working for the Pakistani government.

And here's the transcript from todays' appearance on CNN:

BLITZER: Let's talk about some of the people who have been picked up, mostly in Pakistan, over the last few weeks. In mid-July, Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan. There is some suggestion that by releasing his identity here in the United States, you compromised a Pakistani intelligence sting operation, because he was effectively being used by the Pakistanis to try to find other al Qaeda operatives. Is that true?

RICE: Well, I don't know what might have been going on in Pakistan. I will say this, that we did not, of course, publicly disclose his name. One of them...

BLITZER: He was disclosed in Washington on background.

RICE: On background. And the problem is that when you're trying to strike a balance between giving enough information to the public so that they know that you're dealing with a specific, credible, different kind of threat than you've dealt with in the past, you're always weighing that against kind of operational considerations. We've tried to strike a balance. We think for the most part, we've struck a balance, but it's indeed a very difficult balance to strike.

BLITZER: Had he been flipped, in the vernacular, was he cooperating with Pakistani intelligence after he was arrested?

RICE: I don't know the answer to that question, as to whether or not he was cooperating with them.