Friday Orchid Blogging

23 minutes to go, ooh yeah.



Phrag Schlimii. Totally gorgeous. Don't grow 'em. May some day. Enjoy. Off to watch Sci-Fi Friday on TiVO now. Read the rest of this post...

Who asked for the State Dept. memo?

Here's something to chew on over night....It's just part of one sentence in the NY Times article about the State Department report that stands out:

It is not clear who asked for the memo...

Who indeed...we all want to know. Had to be someone pretty high up. And, key to know that the Wilson/Plame memo had been kicking around for almost a month before Rove's July 8th call with Novak and his July 11th call with Cooper:

The memo was dated June 10, 2003, nearly four weeks before Mr. Wilson wrote an Op-Ed article for The New York Times in which he recounted his mission and accused the administration of twisting intelligence to exaggerate the threat from Iraq. The memo was written for Marc Grossman, then the under secretary of state for political affairs, and it referred explicitly to Valerie Wilson as Mr. Wilson's wife, according to a government official who reread the memo on Friday.

Read the rest of this post...

The Plot thickens: The State Dept. Memo

Oh boy. For all the spinning and leaking the Rove team has been doing, they just can't seem to get in front of this story. Every day, something new is uncovered. Today's development -- in tomorrow's New York Times -- is the State Department's memo about Joseph Wilson and Valerie Plame (aren't you glad, that in the middle of a war, this is what the State Department was writing memos about?):

Prosecutors in the C.I.A. leak case have shown intense interest in a 2003 State Department memorandum that explained how a former diplomat came to be dispatched on an intelligence-gathering mission and the role of his wife, a C.I.A. officer, in the trip, people who have been officially briefed on the case said.

Investigators in the case have been trying to learn whether officials at the White House and elsewhere in the administration learned of the C.I.A. officer's identity from the memorandum. They are seeking to determine if any officials then passed the name along to journalists and if officials were truthful in testifying about whether they had read the memorandum, the people who have been briefed said, asking not to be named because the special prosecutor heading the investigation had requested that no one discuss the case.

The memo was sent to Colin L. Powell, then the secretary of state, just before or as he traveled with President Bush and other senior officials to Africa starting on July 7, 2003, when the White House was scrambling to defend itself from a blast of criticism a few days earlier from the former diplomat, Joseph C. Wilson IV, current and former government officials said.

Mr. Powell was seen walking around Air Force One during the trip with the memo in hand, said a person involved in the case who also requested anonymity because of the prosecutor's admonitions about talking about the investigation.

Investigators are also trying to determine whether the gist of the information in the memo, including the name of the C.I.A. officer, Valerie Wilson, Mr. Wilson's wife, had been provided to the White House even earlier, said another person who has been involved in the case. Investigators have been looking at whether the State Department provided the information to the White House before July 6, 2003, when her husband publicly criticized the way the administration used intelligence to justify the war in Iraq, the person said.

And, heads up to Ari....someone is selling you out....when you play with the big dogs, sometimes it comes back to bite you:

The special prosecutor, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, has sought to determine how much Ari Fleischer, the White House spokesman at the time of the leak, knew about the State Department memo. Lawyers involved in the case said Mr. Fitzgerald asked a number of questions about Mr. Fleischer's role. Mr. Fleischer was with Mr. Bush and much of the senior White House staff in Africa when Mr. Powell, who was also with them, received the memo. A spokeswoman for Mr. Powell said he was out of the country and could not comment on the memo. Mr. Fleischer said in an e-mail message this week that he would not comment on the case.

I'm sure no one who read the memo would have ever said anything about it or showed it to Karl Rove. Read the rest of this post...

SCi-Fi Friday Open Thread - WOO WOO!

It's Friday. My inner geek is released. Of course, I'm going to dinner with Joe and a friend INSTEAD of watching Sci Fi Friday LIVE (well, taped live). If TiVO messes up, it's toast.

Feel free to discuss Sci-Fi Friday, or not, at will.

Will Odama live. Will President Laura get out of the brig? What about Boomer's baby? And don't even get me started on SG1 and Atlantis!

I'm never leaving home on Fridays again... Read the rest of this post...

Drudge promotes fake story on home page

Nice of Matt Drudge to use his much-visited Web site to promote fake news. He took Amb. Wilson's quote out of context then put it on his home page to make it look like Valerie Plame wasn't an undercover CIA agent. The problem? The article he links to makes clear that Plame WAS undercover.



Wilson meant that his wife was no longer undercover once Novak and Rove OUTED her.

Of course, perhaps the problem is simply that Drudge posted the old story, the one that got the facts wrong, and since that time the story has been updated (which it has), and Drudge simply goes for hours without updating his once-vaunted Web site.

Oh how the mighty have fallen.

More from E&P; Read the rest of this post...

Comcast blocking all emails with www.AfterDowningStreet.org in the text

Very weird. And reportedly, the AfterDowningStreet people have NOT been spamming. Is Comcast taking sides in a political debate, as AfterDowningStreet is all about exposing the Downing Street Memos, and that Bush lied about the war? More from BradBlog and AfterDowningStreet.org.

TAKE ACTION HERE:
- Comcast, Executive Offices: 215-665-1700
- Comcast, Abused Department: 856-317-7272 Ext 1 (and leave a message)
- To cancel Comcast Internet Service, call 800-COMCAST or 888-405-9200, press 1 for English, 4 to drop Comcast, and 2 to choose specifcy Internet service (as opposed to cable).
- To contact Comcast and its Officers via Email, click here.
http://www.cmcsk.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=147565&p;=irol-contacts Read the rest of this post...

Two points for AP - Valerie Plame WAS undercover when Novak & Rove outed her

The Associated Press followed up on their earlier story about Ambassador Wilson and they corrected themselves. Two points for good journalists following up on a story. Good to see.

In an interview on CNN earlier Thursday before the latest revelation, Wilson kept up his criticism of the White House, saying Rove's conduct was an "outrageous abuse of power ... certainly worthy of frog-marching out of the White House."

Wilson also said "my wife was not a clandestine officer the day that Bob Novak blew her identity."

In an interview Friday, Wilson said his comment was meant to reflect that his wife lost her ability to be a covert agent because of the leak, not that she had stopped working for the CIA beforehand.

His wife's "ability to do the job she's been doing for close to 20 years ceased from the minute Novak's article appeared; she ceased being a clandestine officer," he said.

Read the rest of this post...

Open Thread

What a week. And John has a big decision tonight...out for dinner with his friends or watch the season premiere of Sci-Fi Friday. Who's a geek? Read the rest of this post...

Bush AGAIN refuses to say he still has faith in Karl Rove

This is not the sign of a president standing by his man.

From the White House Pool Report (i.e., one reporter traveling with the president and reporting back to the others):

Pool Report #4, 7/15/05
NORTH CAROLINA TO ANDREWS

On the tarmac in North Carolina, your pool was able to walk briefly alongside the president and ask if he still had faith in Karl Rove. The question was met with a stare straight ahead, silence and a quick brush-off motion of Bush's left hand, as if the president were Swatting away an insect.

Karl himself was more jovial on the tarmac, where when surrounded by reporters he grinned and held up the president's suit jacket, as if to say that he was a coat-holder and nothing more. The president at this point was under the hot sun in shirt sleeves signing autographs for a crowd of onlookers.

Despite his antics, Karl answered no questions, and soon trundled quickly away from your pool toward the stairs of Air Force One.

Other than that, nothing of interest happened. The president signed autographs for nearly half an hour. Air Force One took off around 2:30 p.m., and we're now airborne.

Touchdown at 3:31 p.m.

Elisabeth Bumiller

NYT

Read the rest of this post...

"It is wrong to mess around with an investigation for political gain"

So said Ken Mehlman on CNN moments ago. You might want to pass that quote to your friends at the White House, Ken, because it's not just wrong, it's called conspiracy to obstruct justice.

Apropos of nothing, how's your buddy Ari doing, Ken? Read the rest of this post...

Novak reportedly ratted everyone out to Grand Jury

RADAR got a pretty good scoop here (I had nothing to do with it).

Interestingly, not only does it say that Novak spilled his guts to the grand jury, but he reportedly told them that the NYT's Judith Miller told Novak about Valerie Plame's CIA identity, then Novak called his two White House sources (one of which was Rove) for confirmation.

Interesting. So, when Karl Rove's anonymous source says today that Rove found out about Plame from journalists, did that source mean Judy Miller?

Did Robert Novak rat on New York Times reporter Judith Miller? While some have suggested Miller—who never wrote a word about CIA spook Valerie Plame—was dragged into the leak probe when her name turned up on a White House call log, several beltway insiders close to the investigation say special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald learned of Miller’s involvement from Novak himself.

Though the GOP hatchetman claims he’s never spoken to the grand jury about the column, a well-known Democratic pundit tells Radar, “Novak is the media’s Joseph Valachi,” referring to the 1960’s mafia capo who was the first mobster to testify against La Cosa Nostra. “There’s no question he rolled over.” According to our sources, Miller shared Plame’s identity with her perfidious fellow neocon after deciding not to publish it herself; Novak then called his two White House sources for confirmation and wrote the July 14, 2003 column that blew Plame’s cover.

Read the rest of this post...

Ari may be in trouble too

The NY Daily News has the scoop:

The special prosecutor probing the outing of a CIA spy is looking beyond who leaked Valerie Plame's identity, seeking whether White House aides tried to cover their tracks after her name went public, sources told the Daily News.

Along with Bush political guru Karl Rove, the grand jury is investigating what role, if any, ex-White House mouthpiece Ari Fleischer may have played in the revelation that the former covert operative Plame was married to former Ambassador Joe Wilson.

"Ari's name keeps popping up," said one source familiar with special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's probe.

Another source close to the probe added there is renewed interest in Fleischer, "based on Fitzgerald's questions."

A State Department memo that included background on Wilson - and who in the White House had access to it - appears to be a key to revealing who gave conservative columnist Robert Novak Plame's name, both sources said.

Another person of interest in the case is Vice President Cheney's chief of staff Lewis (Scooter) Libby, who was described as "totally obsessed with Wilson," the sources said.

Ok, this is interesting.

First, Ari may be in trouble too.

Second, he may be in trouble because the special prosecutor is trying to find out if White House aides covered their tracks. Well, got news for you - either Karl or Scottie lied, thus causing Scottie to tell the press that no one in the White House had anything to do with the leak. That means they could be implicated in this "trying to cover their tracks" probe.

Technorati page on Karl Rove Read the rest of this post...

Novak's own statement contradicts story that HE told Rove about Plame, and not vice versa

Astute reader Ted just alerted to what appears to be a lie from either Novak or Rove.

Today's big story is that Rove supposedly never gave Valerie Plame's name to Novak - but rather that Novak mentioned Plame was CIA and Rove said "yeah I heard that too," or something to that effect.

In fact, here's what Novak said in his first interview that we know of just after he leaked Plame's name in print:

Novak, in an interview, said his sources had come to him with the information. "I didn't dig it out, it was given to me," he said. "They thought it was significant, they gave me the name and I used it."

Read that again. I didn't dig it out, it was given to me - they gave me the name. That does not jibe with Rove's anonymous buddy telling the NYT that it was Novak who first brought up Plame as CIA and NOT Rove.

Not that any of this matters. Rove confirmed the identity of a CIA agent to Novak, he affirmatively outed that agent to TIME, and then he and the White House lied about it to the media and the American public for two years. But it is interesting to note that this new story from Rove's handlers totally contradicts what Novak himself said two years ago.

So who's lying - Novak or Rove?

PS Another possibility is that Rove wasn't one of the "two administration officials" who told Novak about Plame. In that case, we've got two more, and not one more, Bush administration traitor on the loose. Read the rest of this post...

John Solomon of Associated Press botches Rove story

The Associated Press totally botched a rather significant part of the Rove-Plame story today.

Basically, AP is now supposedly quoting Wilson as saying his wife was NOT an undercover agent when Rove outed her. Here's what AP wrote today:

But at the same time, Wilson acknowledged his wife was no longer in an undercover job at the time Novak's column first identified her. "My wife was not a clandestine officer the day that Bob Novak blew her identity," he said.

NO, AP, that's not what Wilson said - I watched the interview live. What he said was that the day Bob Novak outed his wife she ceased to be an undercover operative. Not that she wasn't an undercover operative on that day, but rather that she sure wasn't undercover anymore once Rove and Novak outed here. Big difference there.

At the very most, one can argue that Wilson's comments were confusing - that it wasn't clear which interpretation he meant. But AP simply quoting this as fact, that's simply factually wrong on its face. (It sounds to me like the GOP fed that quote to AP and no one thought twice about what it really meant - haven't you guys learned yet about trusting this administration on this stuff?) And you know that AP line is going to be used by the wingnuts to "prove" that Plame wasn't an undercover agent.

And as Atrios notes, Wilson can't come right out and say his wife was an undercover operative, because legally he probably can't. That's why he wasn't clear. But for AP to just presume that Wilson meant his wife wasn't undercover at the time, there is simply no basis in fact - that's a rather big screw-up. Read the rest of this post...

Open thread

It's Sci-Fri Friday again...!!!! Premieres of all the series tonight - woo woo! Read the rest of this post...

"All's well that ends well" is not the appropriate response to the London bombings

You'll recall I reported last night that the Bush administration botched the UK effort to thwart the London Tube and bus bombings last week.

Well, I was just alerted by Jamie McCarthy to a reporter's question posed to former Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge on September 16, 2004 about the botched effort.

Note Ridge's incorrect assertion that as a result of the leak and the overall US bungling there was in essence no harm, no foul as a result - i.e., everything worked out okay anyway. Wonder if the Bush administration is going to retract that now.From the US Embassy Web site in Britain:

QUESTION: Richard Norton-Taylor of The Guardian. Could I follow up that question, and some concern has been expressed probably normally privately here about the amount of information America.... people say maybe the Americans say too much, phrases like crying wolf were mentioned and so on. I just wondered if you had any comment on that?

SECRETARY RIDGE: Well, I believe you're referring, probably, to some background information that was shared, no-one really knows the source. But I know there was the regrettable disclosure of information that British officials would have much preferred to remain confidential, at least during the time of apprehension and the decision-making as to whether or not they should be held and then charged. And I assure you it wasn't part of any public pronouncement relative to raising the threat level from the Department of Homeland Security. And there was clearly an insensitivity by the individual who disclosed that information to the process and to the demands on our friends who are co-operating with us in terms of their own legal process. So the expression of displeasure based on the leak or that source of that information being made public, and the potential to complicate the life of the authorities in Great Britain, frankly, was an appropriate expression of disappointment and displeasure. I have no argument with that.

There is a different process here. We need to be respectful of the legal and the constitutional means by which we conduct our business and I'd hate to see that kind of that situation recur with the frequency or the severity that would impair the extraordinary collaborative relationship we have. So I can say, from my perspective, the public expression of disappointment and displeasure was appropriate. As it turned out, all's well that ends well, but understanding the restrictions and the conditions under which your law enforcement community operates in this country, we should do everything we can to avoid compromising or undermining it, period.

Read the rest of this post...

Josh Marshall Nails It

Okay, I am a big fan of TPM anyway, but the latest post from Josh Marshall nails the Rove scandal. You should read the whole thing, but key excerpts:

No presidential advisor should ever disclose the identity of a covert agent at the CIA. That doesn't require elaboration.

If it's done knowingly, it's a felony. Joe Wilson could be the biggest hack in the world. Plame could have cooked the whole trip idea up to damage the president -- as some GOP loopsters are now claiming -- and it wouldn't matter.

Rove did something obviously wrong and reckless. And they probably broke several laws by the time it was all done.

Pretty much every Republican in Washington today works for Karl Rove. So they can't deal with that fact. But fact it is.

And nothing was done amiss? If Rove et al. didn't do anything wrong, why have they spent two years lying about what they did? No law was broken? Then what is Fitzgerald looking at? Why is a grand jury investigating Rove? A prosecutor like Fitzgerald, a Republican appointee, wouldn't be throwing journalists in jail unless he thought he was investigating a serious crime.

The GOPers are trying to smear, bad mouth and change the subject. But the bottom line is what Josh outlines above. The GOP has no answer to that, as Josh points out. And, the White House has never come clean about this scandal. They've lied. And, now, it's coming back to haunt them. Read the rest of this post...

Lies lies, everywhere lies

The Press As Liars
The media has reported from day one of this administration that the White House is nearly leak free. That is a lie and they created it.

Since we have learned that they do in fact leak, we now know what double-super-secret really means -- the press is required to create and perpetuate the lie that the White House doesn't leak. (I think that I should have paid more attention to passing notes in sixth grade. Who knew it was really a skill I needed for success in the 21st century?)

The White House As Liars -- and a threat to our National Security
Now that Rove through his attorneys has REPEATEDLY confirmed that he leaked Valarie Plame's name to the press and with what John has uncovered about the Democratic Convention leak here, I think it's obvious that this administration does in fact leak -- they just do it with discipline. (Really it's called "message control" and Republicans do it much better than the Democrats.)

In the Khan story, one rationale for leaking his name is that it would lend credibility an otherwise suspect raising of the terror threat level. Why might it have been suspect? Perhaps because the press and public wouldn't trust the administration when they raised the threat levels without something substantial? Perhaps because the press and public wouldn't trust an administration that had lied about WMD? It was a leak created out of weakness that people like Joe Wilson helped create by exposing their WMD lies.

In the Plame story, Wilson argues that by attacking him they were trying to stop the unraveling of the cover-up of the lies that got us into the war. He was getting too much publicity and was about to blow the whole story up.

I have always believed that outing Valarie Plame was a mistake of the gossipy hubris kind. Plame was just the icing on the Wilson character assassination cake, and it was that one step too far that the popular gossip queen in sixth grade always makes. You know, the one where she ends up with no friends by the end of the year. (How many real friends does Karl have right now? He's about to find out.)

Both of these leaks appear to have weakened our national security at a time of war. Both were made for political reasons. How many times does George Bush and this administration have to put politics before national security before everyone finally shouts "The President Has No Clothes!"? (Senator Byrd did in 2003 when he voted against the $87 billion. That's the leadership of the old Democratic Party -- and what is still lacking today. Maybe that's why we're in the minority and didn't win the White House?)

-- Rob in Baltimore

P.S. - CNN's Franken is camped out in front of Rove's house right now. Gotta love the frenzy in action. Read the rest of this post...

Sloppy reporting

I'm noticing more and more news stories getting very sloppy with the latest twist to the Rove story. What those stories are trying to say is:

1. Rove claims he learned about Plame being CIA from other journalists and not from government sources. Even were that true, it's irrelevant to a senior government official leaking the name of a CIA agent - it doesn't matter how he found out. He knows better, and he flagrantly risked national security for petty revenge.

2. Rove now claims he confirmed for Novak that he heard Plame was CIA, but that Novak asked him about her CIA connections first. Again, irrelevant. He confirmed an undercover CIA agent to a journalist, is he mad? I mean, if a journalist said "so, I hear we're invading Syria on August 15" would Rove respond, "yeah I heard that too"? No, he wouldn't. This kind of journalist prying happens all the time. But Rove decided to answer this time, putting our national security at risk.

3. Matt Cooper's notes show that it was ROVE who offered Plame's CIA connection to TIME magazine, without any prompting from Matt Cooper. So, the Novak story is irrelevant either way. All the Novak story shows is that there's now a pattern of Rove outing Plame as CIA to numerous journalists.

4. The White House lied to the press corp and the American people for two years, saying that Rove had nothing to do with the leak, and he did.

5. President Bush said he'd fire the leaker, and now he's backing off of his own word.

Those are facts. Read the rest of this post...

Bush admin may be responsible for botching effort to thwart London bombing

BUMP: Forgive me bumping this story that I posted last night. I feel it's that important, and we've been posting so much because of the Rove story, I don't want it to get lost. Thanks, JOHN
_________________

ABC News just reported that the British authorities say they have evidence that the London attacks last week were an operation planned by Al Qaeda for the last two years. This was an operation the Brits thought they caught and stopped in time, but they were wrong. The piece of the puzzle ABC missed is that this is an operation the Bush administration helped botch last year.

I.e., last year Bush botched the effort to thwart the London subway attacks.

1. The London bombers, per ABC, are connected to an Al Qaeda plot planned two years ago in Lahore, Pakistan.

2. Pakistani authorities recovered the laptop of a captured Al Qaeda leader, Mohammed Naeem Noor Khan, on July 13, 2004. On that laptop, they found plans for a coordinated series of attacks on the London subway. According to an expert interviewed by ABC, "there is absolutely no doubt that Khan was part of a worldwide Al Qaeda operation, not just in the United States but also in Great Britain and throughout the west."

Also important, but not reported by ABC this evening, after his arrest Khan started working for our side - sending emails to his other Al Qaeda buddies, working as our mole.

3. ABC reports that names in Khan's computer matched a suspected cell of British citizens of Pakistani decent, many of who lived near the town of Luton, England - Luton is the same town where, not coincidentally, last week's London bombing terrorists began their day. According to ABC, authorities thought they had stopped the subway plot with the arrest of more than a dozen people last year associated with Khan. Obviously, they hadn't.

4. Those arrests were the arrests that the Bush administration botched by announcing a heightened security alert the week of the Democratic Convention. The alert was raised because of information found on Khan's computer (this is in the public record already, see below). In its effort to either prove that the alert was serious, or to try and scare people during the Dem Convention, the administration gave the press too much information about WHY they raised the alert. This put the media on the trail of Khan - they found him, and they published his name.

Because the US let the cat out of the bag, the media got a hold of Khan's name and published the fact that he had been captured - his Al Qaeda contacts thus found out their "buddy" was actually a mole, and they fled. Our sole source inside Al Qaeda was destroyed. As a result, the Brits had to have a high speed chase to catch some of Khan's Al Qaeda associates as they fled, and, according to press reports, the Brits and Pakistanis both fear that some slipped away.

Again, these were guys connected to the plot to blow up the London subway last week. Some may have escaped because of Bush administration negligence involving a leak. And in fact, ABC News' terrorism consultant says the group that bombed London was likely activated just after the arrests:

"It is very likely this group was activated last year after the other group was arrested," Debat said.

MORE DETAIL

The NYT reported on August 17, 2004 that Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge announced on August 1, 2004 that we had information about an "unusually specific" threat against "the New York Stock Exchange and Citigroup in Manhattan, Prudential's headquarters in Newark and the headquarters buildings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank in Washington."

We now know that this threat info came from Mr. Khan's computer that we got our hands on only weeks before. As a result of the heightened security alert, the media dug into the story to find out what the heightened alert was based on, and they got a hold of Mr. Khan's name and made it public.

The Americans say it was Pakistani officials who leaked Khan's name. Pakistan says it was the Americans. But as Juan Cole notes:

had Ridge not made his announcement, the press would have had no occasion to go searching for the source of his information. The Bush administration decision to go public put a powerful spotlight on the Pakistani arrests of June and July.... The Bush administration at the very least bears indirect responsibility for the outing of Khan. Without the Ridge announcement, reporters would have had no incentive to seek out the name of the source of the information.

Now, why did it matter if Khan's name went public?

That was important because Khan was remaining in touch with his Al Qaeda contacts AFTER his arrest - he was our mole - and the authorities were thus tracking INSIDE Al Qaeda. Once the American official made the info about Khan's arrest public, our mole inside the cell was blown, and the British police, caught off guard, had to make a high speed chase, literally, to catch Khan's contacts before they fled. THAT'S the raid that ABC is talking about. And it's that raid that - guess what? - didn't catch everybody who was plotting to blow up London last week. That's the raid that got botched.

And I quote from the Associated Press, August 10, 2004:

The disclosure to reporters of the arrest of an al-Qaida computer expert jeopardized Pakistani efforts to capture more members of Osama bin Laden's terrorist network, government and security officials said Tuesday.

Two senior Pakistani officials said initial reports in "Western media" last week of the capture of Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan had enabled other al-Qaida suspects to get away, but declined to say whether U.S. officials were to blame for the leak.

"Let me say that this intelligence leak jeopardized our plan and some al-Qaida suspects ran away," one of the officials said on condition of anonymity....

But the Pakistani officials said that after Khan's arrest, other al-Qaida suspects had abruptly changed their hide-outs and moved to unknown places.

The first official described the initial publication of the news of Khan's arrest as "very disturbing."

"We have checked. No Pakistani official made this intelligence leak," he said.

Without naming any country, he said it was the responsibility of "coalition partners" to examine how a foreign journalist was able to have an access to the "classified information" about Khan's arrest. (NOTE: In this story, it quotes Condi Rice saying the Americans leaked the name - she later retracted that assertion.)

And this from CNN.com, August 9, 2004:

The effort by U.S. officials to justify raising the terror alert level last week may have shut down an important source of information that has already led to a series of al Qaeda arrests, Pakistani intelligence sources have said.

Until U.S. officials leaked the arrest of Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan to reporters, Pakistan had been using him in a sting operation to track down al Qaeda operatives around the world, the sources said.

In background briefings with journalists last week, unnamed U.S. government officials said it was the capture of Khan that provided the information that led Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge to announce a higher terror alert level....

Law enforcement sources said some of the intelligence gleaned from the arrests of Khan and others gave phone numbers and e-mail addresses that the FBI and other agencies were using to try to track down any al Qaeda operatives in the United States.

Then on Friday, after Khan's name was revealed, government sources told CNN that counterterrorism officials had seen a drop in intercepted communications among suspected terrorists....

One senator told CNN that U.S. officials should have kept Khan's role quiet.

"You always want to know the evidence," said Sen. George Allen.

"In this situation, in my view, they should have kept their mouth shut and just said, 'We have information, trust us.' "....

"The Pakistani interior minister, Faisal Hayat, as well as the British home secretary, David Blunkett, have expressed displeasure in fairly severe terms that Khan's name was released, because they were trying to track down other contacts of his," Schumer told CNN.

And this from the NY Daily News, August 7, 2004:

A captured Al Qaeda computer whiz was E-mailing his comrades as part of a sting operation to nab other top terrorists when U.S. officials blew his cover, sources said yesterday.

Within hours of Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan's name being publicized Monday, British police launched lightning raids that netted a dozen suspected Al Qaeda terrorists, including one who was nabbed after a high-speed car chase....

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....

"His arrest was kept secret and he was made to remain in touch with his contacts," a Pakistani government official told The Times of London. "During his detention, he regularly communicated through E-mail with the Al Qaeda operatives in Britain and other countries. That helped us to identify them."

And this from the Washington Times:

The Times quoted one unidentified "senior (police) commander" as saying Scotland Yard and MI5 had not expected the American announcements and had to move up the arrests, which were "part of a pre-planned, ongoing intelligence-led operation."

And this from Juan Cole, who tracked this story last year:

...had Ridge not made his announcement, the press would have had no occasion to go searching for the source of his information. The Bush administration decision to go public put a powerful spotlight on the Pakistani arrests of June and July.... The Bush administration at the very least bears indirect responsibility for the outing of Khan. Without the Ridge announcement, reporters would have had no incentive to seek out the name of the source of the information.... The appearance of Khan's name in the New York Times on August 2 caused the British to have to swoop down on the London al-Qaeda cell to which he was speaking. As it was, 5 of them heard about Khan's arrest and immediately fled. The British got 13, but it was early in their investigation and they had to let 5 go or charge them with minor offences

And this from IPS-Inter Press Service, August 9, 2004:

"By exposing the only deep mole we've ever had within al-Qaeda, it ruined the chance to capture dozens if not hundreds more," a former Justice Department prosecutor, John Loftus, told Fox News on Saturday.

Read the rest of this post...

Open thread

Off to get breakfast with my cousin who's visiting. Any news? Read the rest of this post...

"Karl Rove's America"

Read Paul Krugman's latest column. There is so much there, but this is one key excerpt:

Mr. Rove also understands, better than anyone else in American politics, the power of smear tactics. Attacks on someone who contradicts the official line don't have to be true, or even plausible, to undermine that person's effectiveness. All they have to do is get a lot of media play, and they'll create the sense that there must be something wrong with the guy.

And now we know just how far he was willing to go with these smear tactics: as part of the effort to discredit Joseph Wilson IV, Mr. Rove leaked the fact that Mr. Wilson's wife worked for the C.I.A. I don't know whether Mr. Rove can be convicted of a crime, but there's no question that he damaged national security for partisan advantage. If a Democrat had done that, Republicans would call it treason.

Once again, Krugman nails it. Democrats and the media are still following the old rules, not by Rove's rules. Read the rest of this post...

So where is the war on terror actually working?

Chiggerscratch, Wyoming. Read the rest of this post...

Afghan opium war not going well

Foreign aid money has failed to deliver enough or at the right time which means that the Karzai government has little means to combat the problem. There's obviously plenty of profit in the opium business and local police who are in the field are poorly paid and ripe for corruption. Local farmers have the option to grow cotton, fruit or vegetables which have very limited markets and make little money or they can grow opium, knowing that there is a strong market though with risks.

Late last year, U.N. experts reported that Afghan farmers had grown record levels of poppy in 2004, with the amount of land dedicated to poppies reaching 323,570 acres -- a two-thirds increase over 2003. Afghan opium poppies were used to produce nearly 90 percent of the world's heroin, they said.

The west has raised some money but it's just too little and too late. The limited funds that are arriving are just arriving and the poppy farmers are preparing for the next planting season. As long as the west keeps buying and fails to deliver proper support for fighting this battle, the problem will not go away. Read the rest of this post...

Today Show Aside: Supreme Court

When Katie Couric was running down the miserable poll numbers for Bush, she discussed some questions about the vacancy of the Supreme Court. In comparing the numbers of people who said Bush should nominate someone who was a "strict constructionist" versus someone who acknowledged "changing realities/changing times" (a poorly worded comparison, I might add), Couric blithely described this as the choice between a strict constructionist and a "judicial activist." Huh? Judicial activist is a made-up phrase by the far right to attack any judge -- including Republicans like Sandra Day O'Connor and Joseph Kennedy -- who dares to make any ruling they disagree with. It is not a "type" of judge -- since there is no such thing -- nor is it a type anyone would want to nominate. Just an aside on her part, but a very bad one. Read the rest of this post...