Score One for Incompetance

If you're still one of the few remaining people who honestly believe that the Bush Administration is good on terror issues, or who believes the meme that only Republicans can do anything about terrorism, I invite you to look at the recent news stories regarding the pre-reporting on the 9/11 bin Laden video tape of last month.

Apparently the early information about the tape was obtained through secret intelligence means by a small private company called "SITE Intelligence Group". That company says that the channels through which it got this and other information about al Qaeda operations have now gone dark and useless, because knowledge that we had obtained the pre-release copy got out into the public (and of course back to al Qaeda) after senior administration officials leaked it to Fox News and others.

So, what's the outcome of all of this? Well, there are several.

1. A good, solid source of intelligence regarding al Qaeda has been identified and shut down on al Qaeda's end, so we no longer have that pipeline.
2. A private company (remember, Republicans are supposed to be the pro-business party) has lost a major asset.
3. That private company and others are going to think twice before offering intelligence to the administration again, knowing that by doing so they may once again have their sources shut down through administration bungling.

Oh, and the response from the administration and right wing bloggers seems to be that this didn't really damage our intelligence at all and that it's a non-story. These would be the same people who last year were positively frothing at the mouth claiming that the mere knowledge of the existence of the US wire-tapping program was severely damaging to our al Qaeda fighting abilities. So apparently when it's a leak they started and which allowed them to look good, but actually closes down a significant source of information, that's good. When it's a leak they didn't start and makes them look bad, but doesn't really tell anyone anyhing that a halfway intelligent bad guy would have already at least considered, that's bad.

If you want a few links to the story, you can easily Google on "bin laden tape release" and "SITE intelligence", but here are two to get you started:

The Washington Post

The Boston Globe


Liam.