News Leak Blows Big Opportunity [Al Qaeda'a Man at the BBC]

Newsweek ^ | 8/14/03 | Michael Isikoff & Mark Hosenball

[TastyManatees]

News Leak Blows Big Opportunity
Newsweek Web Exclusive

While publicly congratulating themselves over the bust of an international arms dealer in an alleged plot to sell Russian-made surface-to-air missiles, top Justice Department officials are privately fuming over a premature news leak that may have blown a rare opportunity to penetrate Al Qaeda's arms-buying network, NEWSWEEK has learned.

THE FBI'S ARREST of London-based arms dealer Hemant Lakhani, 68, at a hotel room near Newark Liberty International Airport this week was supposed to be only an interim step in what officials hoped would be a far more meaningful long-term operation, law-enforcement sources said. The bureau's plan was to quickly flip Lakhani, a British citizen of Indian extraction, and then use him as an undercover informant who could lead agents to real-life Osama bin Laden operatives seeking sophisticated weapons. But those plans went awry late Tuesday afternoon when the Feds learned that the BBC was about to broadcast a sensational report on Lakhani's arrest by one of its star correspondents, Tom Mangold. The BBC story, based on an apparent leak from a law-enforcement source, had some key details wrong. For one thing, it falsely claimed that the arms dealer's attempted sale of a shoulder-fired SA-18 missile and launder was part of a plot by terrorists to shoot down Air Force One--a target that never actually came up in the discussions.

But even so, U.S. law-enforcement sources tell NEWSWEEK, the damage was done. The FBI had to abort its plan to recruit Lakhani as an informant and instead charged him today in federal court in Newark, N.J., with weapons smuggling and with providing material support to terrorists. Also arrested in the case were two alleged confederates--a New York City jeweler and a Malaysian businessman--who were charged with conspiring to operate an unlicensed money-transfer business.

The U.S. attorney in Newark, Christopher Christie, today called the arrest of Lakhani "an incredible triumph" during a press conference on the courthouse steps.

But in Washington, senior Justice Department officials were "not happy," said one law-enforcement official. "We didn't want this to get out before we could determine whether this guy would cooperate or not." For all the hoopla over the case, the official confirmed, it was essentially a government-arranged "sting" that never involved any contact with actual terrorists.

(Mangold told NEWSWEEK today that ABC News had sent out an internal "news flash" about the arrest of Lakhani at 4:22 p.m. ET--more than a half hour before the BBC first broadcast the story. But an ABC source said there was no such news flash and that the news organization learned about the story when it heard that BBC reporters were calling around to U.S. law-enforcement officials saying they intended to broadcast the story on their 10 p.m. [5 p.m. ET] broadcast.)

[TastyManatees]

DOJ initially intended to turn the arms dealer busted trying to sell a man-portable surface-to-air missile to undercover agents. In other words, had the BBC not revealed the information on the secret sting operation, the United States could have had gotten a man inside Al Qaeda to feed us all the information on their weaponry purchases. Then, once BBC destroyed the operation, causing the DOJ to be forced to prosecute one individual bent on harming us, instead of using him to take down all of Al Qaeda, ABC piled on by trying to claim there wasn't anything to the charges!

Tasty Manatees

[SwinneySwitch]

"...SA-18 missile and launder..."

Newsweek seeks proof readers!

[mhking]

AQ has folks everywhere. Why am I not surprised?

Walk softly and be prepared.

[MizSterious]

With "friends" like the media (BBC in this case), who needs enemies?

[MEG33]

We can't expect a news organization(especially BBC) to do what's best for the safety and well being of society ,particularly Americans,can we?!

[Gabrielle Reilly]

Follow up on the international arms dealer bust.

[trebb]

Sounds like the BBC is coming apart at the seams when it comes to aiding and abetting the terrorists, while rivaling the NYTimes for outright lies...

[RightWhale]

ABC piled on

Such big news a couple days ago, they caught a couple thugs with a rocket.

Now an even bigger story, a huge story, a story that proves the news media is actually working for the enemy, and does the media report it? Of course they did, says Bohannon, how else would you have learned about this.

Sure, but where is the rabid, breathless excitement this time? Where is the constant droning hitting the story over and over? Where is the 216-point headline? What does the glamorous Arianna have to say about this?

[DoctorMichael]

"..... BBC was about to broadcast a sensational report......"

The 'Beeb'{Snort}...........serving the public interest again. [/sarcasm]

[Gabrielle Reilly]

You may appreciate this article on related to media propaganda.

http://www.gabriellereillyweekly.com/full/statedepartment.html

[Cachelot]

News Leak Blows Big Opportunity

Yeah, well -- I see the BBC as a terrorist mouthpiece, like al Jazeera. Wonder how many AQ contacts are on the inside, just for opportunities like this. And watching for signs that says their colleagues had better bolt.

[JeeperFreeper]

Tasty- good post. I'm gonna get flamed here, but the real scoundrel here is the law enforcement person who leaked the information. Indeed, here in the USA such a person could get charged with obstruction of justice and interfering with an investigation.

[mewzilla]

Anyone else see the irony in Spikey Isikoff reporting on a news leak? And with the Beeb doing its level best to give aid and comfort to the enemy, who needs al Jazeera?

[Eva]

The BBC has been openly opposing the war in Iraq and Blair by every means possible. Here's a little background from the Wall Street Journal.


The BBC's Sexed-up Report
No bias, please. We're British.

Thursday, August 14, 2003 12:01 a.m.

The worst thing that can be said of a serious news organization is that it is cavalier about reporting the truth as it understands it. Gain a reputation for political bias in reports billed as objective and you can be sure to lose the trust--and patronage--of a significant part of your audience. So only a media giant whose shareholders are under lock and key could be as sanguine as the British Broadcasting Corporation's senior management has been after this week's embarrassing revelations.




The BBC, which is funded by a compulsory $180-a-year tax on every British household with a television, has effectively gone to war with the British government over its report that Prime Minister Tony Blair's top spokesman and adviser "sexed up" a dossier on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. The May 29 report by Andrew Gilligan aired on the agenda-setting BBC Radio 4 "Today" program. It was then picked up by other reports and repeated in newspapers and broadcasts around the world.
David Kelly, a senior adviser to the Defense Ministry, was the source for both Mr. Gilligan and a separate story filed by BBC "Newsnight" reporter Susan Watts. Ms. Watts's report on the dossier never charged Downing Street and Mr. Blair's chief press spokesman Alastair Campbell with deliberate tampering--and particularly with inserting a sensational but unreliable claim that Saddam could launch a WMD attack in 45 minutes. During the inquiry yesterday into the suicide of Dr. Kelly, Ms. Watts blew Mr. Gilligan's tendentious report out of the water.

Ms. Watts released a tape of her last conversation with Dr. Kelly, who makes clear that he is not in a position to assert that Mr. Campbell inserted anything into the intelligence report. Ms. Watts said of her conversations with Dr. Kelly, "He didn't say to me that the dossier was transformed in the last week and he certainly didn't say that the 45-minute claim was inserted either by Alastair Campbell or by anyone else in government. In fact, he denied specifically that Alastair Campbell was involved in the conversation on May 30 . . . he was very clear to me that the claim was in the original intelligence."

It's one thing for a news report to fall short. The normal course of events is for that failing to be acknowledged and corrected. But not only has the BBC refused to do so, it appears to have tried to bury the error. A July 6 minute from a meeting of the BBC Board of Governors lamented that "careful language had not been applied by Andrew Gilligan throughout." But otherwise the BBC has displayed no regrets.

Ms. Watts testified yesterday that the BBC seemed primarily interested in corroborating Mr. Gilligan's account rather than in the merits of her own reports: "I felt under some considerable pressure to reveal my source. I also felt the purpose of that was to help corroborate the Andrew Gilligan allegations and not for any proper news purpose." And, "I was most concerned that there was an attempt to mold [her reports] so that they were corroborative which I felt was misguided and false."

As our European editorial page deputy editor Mike Gonzalez wrote last week, the problem here goes beyond the errors of judgment made by one reporter and the unwillingness of his higher-ups to acknowledge responsibility. It speaks to a culture of bias that has crept into the news reporting of what was once a very fine media organization.

[Hoplite]

I'm not really clear on how an Indian was supposed to infiltrate Al Qaeda, or why a stool pigeon would be more effective than an undercover agent.

[1Old Pro]

The news media leaking stuff harming our intelligence operations. Tell me it ain't so.

[TastyManatees]

Flamed my foot, you're right about the tipper. Some idiot thought he was going to make headlines by feeding a bust to the press. That guy needs to be dropped right now and never picked back up. I mentioned the BBC reporter because he would probably serve as an example to other reporters.

By the way, I read it for the articles on international relations, I swear.

Tasty Manatees

[Republican Red]

I'm gobsmacked!

[TastyManatees]

TastyManatees.com had "Snooty" the manatee for a while, but bthen, I guess that's not even close.

Maybe if I get a Speedo and a digital camera...

Tasty Manatees

[corkoman]

Nice post tasty - 'specially for sigining up July 2003 - are there sea cows in virginia? I hoep so - maybe I can herd all the ones here in florida up there.

[Dante3]

Maybe it's just a coincidence. But I haven't been able to come across any photos of Lakhani and the other two men arrested and nothing much about the latter two.

[mewzilla]

Lakhani's pic has been on FOX, some video of him in the car as he was hauled away. Ick.

[mewzilla]

Hemet Lakhani, courtesy Reuters.

[Dante3]

Thanks!

[Gabrielle Reilly]

LOL. Good site.

Maybe if I hit up the 82% of the internet market internationally that like pictures of women, you could capture the market that enjoys seeing men in tight little speedo's (many probably live in San Fransisco). :) I could organize a professional photo shoot for...

But at least we wouldn't be preaching our beliefs to the choir.

[cyncooper]

Ms. Watts released a tape of her last conversation with Dr. Kelly, who makes clear that he is not in a position to assert that Mr. Campbell inserted anything into the intelligence report. Ms. Watts said of her conversations with Dr. Kelly, "He didn't say to me that the dossier was transformed in the last week and he certainly didn't say that the 45-minute claim was inserted either by Alastair Campbell or by anyone else in government. In fact, he denied specifically that Alastair Campbell was involved in the conversation on May 30 . . . he was very clear to me that the claim was in the original intelligence."

Hold on, Wall Street Journal. Here's what happened regarding Watts' testimony and the contents of the tape:

BBC reporters reveal Kelly's unease at No. 10 spin

(Note Kelly's dismissal of OUR president at the end)

Excerpt:

Ms Watts said Mr Kelly had specifically denied that Alastair Campbell, Tony Blair's official spokesman, had been involved in exaggerating the government dossier on Iraq's weapons. The denial was made during a telephone conversation with Ms Watts a day after Mr Gilligan broadcast his story on Radio Four.

However, a transcript of the same conversation, taken from a tape recording and submitted as evidence, appeared at odds with Ms Watts' account and also cast doubt on the accuracy of Mr Kelly's evidence to a House of Commons committee shortly before his death.

Asked whether Mr Campbell had been involved in a section of the dossier that warned of Iraq being capable of launching weapons of mass destruction within 45 minutes, Mr Kelly said: "All I can say is the Number Ten press office. I've never met Alastair Campbell so I can't [Ms Watts interrupts]...But I think Alastair Campbell is synonymous with that press office because he's responsible for it."

In the tape, Mr Kelly also dismisses as "spin" comments on Iraq's weapons capabilities made by Jack Straw, foreign secretary, and US president George Bush.

[TastyManatees]

Good plan!

[Gabrielle Reilly]

Not sure if you saw yesterdays story on it...

http://apnews.myway.com//article/20030813/D7ST6U4G1.html

[cyncooper]

Ping for the Beeb striking again.

[Dante3]

No, I didn't. Good article.

[Eva]

So you want to take the word of the BBC over the Wall Street Journal, that the testimony exonerated Gilligan rather than condemning both Gilligan and the BBC? Here is another earlier article from WSJ, European branch.

Orwell's Warning
The BBC is blind to its own biases.

BY MICHAEL GONZALEZ
Wednesday, August 6, 2003 12:01 a.m.

The BBC has been described as Orwellian, because of its unequaled role in shaping perceptions in Britain. This is one reason the government of Tony Blair has taken the broadcaster to task over its biased coverage of the Iraq war and its aftermath. But George Orwell also warned us about the dangers the BBC presents in other important ways.
Orwell recognized that Britain's chattering classes have a suicidal habit of flirting with appeasement. Other great British thinkers have also seen this--not least those who, despite having a healthy mistrust of nationalism, realized that an elite estranged from feelings of patriotism represented a threat.

That the BBC has become the home to this elite today is a tough judgment to pass, and the BBC does many great things. Its non-news documentaries are excellent and its comedies--from "Fawlty Towers" through "Blackadder" to, most recently, "The Office"--are brilliant in a way that few American sitcoms dare to be.





Still, it is important not to close one's eyes to what else the BBC has become, particularly since the corporation and its journalists are themselves blind to it. The BBC refuses to admit that its coverage of the lead-up to war, of the conflict and its aftermath, has been tendentious; that it has relentlessly pushed the agenda that the war was wrong. The last straw was its claim that, against the wishes of the intelligence agencies, the government had inserted into a dossier on Iraq the assertion that Saddam Hussein had the ability to deploy weapons of mass destruction in 45 minutes.
The BBC's Andrew Gilligan quoted a source--who turned out to be the scientist David Kelly--as criticizing the government. Kelly later refuted how his comments had been portrayed by Mr. Gilligan to a parliamentary committee. Then Kelly committed suicide. Now the BBC has to either admit that it misquoted a mourned scientist or call him a liar.

That's the scandal in a nutshell. What led to it is the BBC's all-out campaign to validate its world view. Because the mass graves and accounts of torture by Saddam's regime are too real, the BBC has grabbed onto the fact that WMDs have not yet been found to justify its animosity toward the liberation of Iraq. And this animus sprang from the consensus that the West is always wrong.

As Conrad Black, owner of the Telegraph newspapers, wrote in a letter in the July 26 Daily Telegraph: "The BBC is pathologically hostile to the government and official opposition, most British institutions, American policy in almost every field, Israel, moderation in Ireland, all Western religions, and most manifestations of the free market economy."

Lord Black added: "Though its best programming in non-political areas is distinguished, sadly it has become the greatest menace facing the country it was founded to serve and inform."

This is not hyperbole. The BBC can be a formidable foe. It has, in its own words, "the most widely watched national news bulletins in the UK." Thus when the BBC decides to manufacture a story, or ignore another, it forms reality for millions in Britain and world-wide. It gave a demonstration of its muscle July 25, when it ran (and ran) with a scoop that Mr. Blair's director of communications, Alastair Campbell, was about to quit because of the Kelly scandal. That dominated headlines for days.

Mr. Campbell is a powerful man, and his imminent departure would be news. But his resignation (still to be confirmed) also validated the BBC's position. Also news, however, was the fact that the same day as the Campbell scoop the BBC had changed its mind and requested that Parliament not reveal testimony Mr. Gilligan had given on the scandal. In telling contrast, the evening's bulletin did not report these facts.

Quite how the BBC's news department got to this juncture is difficult to parse. Journalists are overwhelmingly left of center to begin with. But there's more to it than that. BBC journalists are part of the self-appointed elite. In London, home of the global avant-garde, they imbibe the latest anti-Western ideologies and platitudes at the dinner parties where they sup.
No man was better than Orwell at diagnosing the ills that have led to the state of affairs that Lord Black so eloquently describes. In "Notes," Orwell wrote: "In societies such as ours, it is unusual for anyone describable as an intellectual to feel a very deep attachment to his own country. Public opinion--that is, the section of public opinion of which he as an intellectual is aware--will not allow him to do so. Most of the people surrounding him are skeptical and disaffected, and he may adopt the same attitude from imitativeness or sheer cowardice."

Through its declarations the BBC reveals itself to be unaware that some people think of it in this manner, let alone that it might be true. It is a testament to Britain's genius that time and again heroes have emerged from unlikely places to slay the nihilism of the intelligentsia. Whether there are any out there to battle with it today remains to be seen.

Mr. Gonzalez is deputy editorial page editor of The Wall Street Journal Europe.

[cyncooper]

So you want to take the word of the BBC over the Wall Street Journal, that the testimony exonerated Gilligan rather than condemning both Gilligan and the BBC?

No, Eva. Before I even read your article I must emphatically state that I was under no circumstances exonerating Gilligan.

I am not taking a reporter's words. In fact, my excerpt shows that Watts' representation of what Kelly told her and *what the committee heard on tape come out of Kelly's mouth* were two different things.

I am second to none in my condemnation of the abominable and deplorable BBC.

[cyncooper]

And note the article I linked was not the BBC.

[fella]

The British government needs to clean house at the BBC.

[cyncooper]

I only disagree with this:

Now the BBC has to either admit that it misquoted a mourned scientist or call him a liar.

The BBC and Gilligan in particular had an agenda. Kelly was in fact a liar. It is not an either/or situation.

Kelly gave Gilligan (and other reporters) the basis for the "sexing up" story and Gilligan in particular then "sexed up" the story from there. The goal was to bring down Blair, of course. And our media was poised to use the story against our president on top of the yellowcake garbage.

[Eva]

I don't get the point of the article that you posted. Kelly does say that he never met Campbell and flat out refuses to come out and say that Campbell is responsible. He even dissembles about it being from Campbells office, as far as I understand the transcript. This is also what Watts understood, apparently also.

[1Old Pro]

Didn't Dan Rather once say he would give up American troop information even if it put them at greater risk if he could break a news story. Something like that. These leftists in the media are treasonous....ask Ann Coulter.

[cyncooper]

He says the press office of #10 was involved in the dossier business and says that although he's never met Campbell (I linked extensive excerpts yesterday to show the clintonesque way of speaking Kelly had and how he distinguishes between seeing and speaking with someone in person to imply something other than the truth) he says Campbell is synonymous with the press office. Hence he did say to Watts in a way that Campbell was involved.

I posted it to show that the BBC did not make up their story out of whole cloth. Kelly was not their victim but was feeding them tidbits that they used against their own government. Both are reprehensible.