Leak Allowed al-Qaida Suspects to Escape

Do you have the original NYT story? I don't know what they wrote. I was responding to the article that started this thread, which says, "His arrest was first reported in American newspapers on Aug. 2 after it was disclosed to reporters by U.S. officials in Washington. Later, the Pakistan government also confirmed his capture but gave no other details."

Of course this may be wrong, but this article states precisely the opposite of what you allege.

I don't understand why you're so sure it wasn't a slip of the tongue. I don't understand how you can use 'background' interchangably with 'original leak' as your posts appear to imply. You see, the problem wasn't 'bacground', if that 'background' was given AFTER the 'original leak'. The problem is the 'original leak' and NO, they are not one and the same.

Do you know what the phrase "on background" means? It means giving a reporter information not for attribution. As in, anonymously. Oftentimes, "original leaks" are given "on background."

I'm not parsing anything. Our discussion here began when I pointed out that Rice said that the info was not given "publicly." Blitzer then noted that it was given "on background", which Rice confirmed.

Kindly look at the first post on this page and read the original, August 2 NY Times article in it's entirety.

I must be confused because the first article on this page and on this thread is by the AP via Yahoo News and states, "His arrest was first reported in American newspapers on Aug. 2 after it was disclosed to reporters by U.S. officials in Washington. Later, the Pakistan government also confirmed his capture but gave no other details."

Clarify please.

Excellent post. The original article makes it clear - over and over, Mr. Charles "Partisan Jackass" Schumer - that the name was NOT revealed by American sources, but by a Pakistani source.

It is very clear (remarkably enough) from the original NYSlimes article that they attribute some "Pakistani official" as releasing the name "Khan". Post#52 completely and certainly serves to illustrate that.

After the horse was out of the barn, Rice's interview with Blitzer reveals only that there were general background statements by admin officials made to reporters regarding the situation, but as another pointed out, Rice's "on background" comment was reflexive (and it SOUNDED THAT WAY, if you heard it) rather than being informational, and that Rice simply was regaining the floor after being interrupted. Her statement in no way says "some fool administration official revealed that Khan was cooperating with to track down AlQ."

There was another statement I heard having something to do with "deep background" - a phrase I'd not heard in that context before, so it caught my attention - but I've been unable to recover that statement. I believe that meant it was even more info given with understanding that it would be embargoed. As P-M has already posted, "Back in WWII the press were given access to all kinds of classified information and told to sit on it. They did. The press back then were hoping that the US would win the war.

Things have taken a dramatic turn. The press cannot be trusted with any information. The Major Media Press, particularly the LA Times and the NY Times are actively working to undermine our war effort both in Iraq and in the war on terrorism."

Perhaps that is the situation that was being referred to in the "deep background" statement I heard earlier - it is certainly what I was interpreting from the context. Perhaps we have some reporters with clearances who are being trusted with contemporary information so they can confirm how things had occurred. If so, Condi was being precise in her interview with Blitzer, and perhaps she was not completely comfortable in any denial that some slimeball reporter who was being trusted might have leaked this info because she has not been able to dissect the NYSlimes article the way we can now do.

No matter what, post#52 makes it clear that Pakistani officials released the name to the Slimes.
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We have been through this wrong attribution of source too many times. Someone posted this on Friday night, at which time, I immediately pulled up the original article, proving that the Pakistanis had been credited as the source of the information in the original article. I have reposted that article umpteen times, and someone else has been reposting it as well.

It's not as clear to me as it is to you. That the opening graf attributes this information to senior admin officials implies (but does not state) that it originally came from the US government. The article mentions Pakistani officials providing information, but it does not make clear who provided the initial info.

Rice is an extremely bright, articulate and seasoned official who was making the Sunday morning rounds with certain talking points. Whether she was "regaining her footing" or being "reflexive," I cannot speculate. But she confirmed that an American spoke on background for this story before going on to explain how thin the line is between educating the public and moving forward with secret investigations.

Yes, I've gone in circles with this sort of stuff before. See my post 67. I don't see where, in the original article, it says that Pakistanis were the primary source.

This sentence: The figure, Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan, was described by a Pakistani intelligence official as a 25-year-old computer engineer, arrested July 13, who had used and helped to operate a secret Qaeda communications system in which information was transferred via coded messages

This sentence: But an account provided by a Pakistani intelligence official made clear that the crucial capture in recent weeks had been that of Khan, who is also known as Abu Talha. The intelligence official provided information describing Khan as having assisted in evaluating potential U.S. and Western targets for terrorist attacks, and as being representative of a "new Al Qaeda."

The original article.

Posted by Eva to be-baw
On News/Activism ^ 08/07/2004 8:33:03 PM PDT · 53 of 84 ^

Geez, we went through this last night. It was the Pakistanis who revealed the name.

I picked this up from some London paper, not the NYT, but I think it says that the Pakistanis were the source.

Captured Qaeda engineer spurred attack warnings
By Douglas Jehl and David Rohde (The New York Times)
Monday, August 2, 2004

WASHINGTON: The unannounced capture of a figure from Al Qaeda in Pakistan several weeks ago led the CIA to the rich lode of information that prompted the terror alert on Sunday, according to senior U.S. officials.

The figure, Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan, was described by a Pakistani intelligence official as a 25-year-old computer engineer, arrested July 13, who had used and helped to operate a secret Qaeda communications system in which information was transferred via coded messages
A senior U.S. official would not confirm or deny that Khan had been the Qaeda figure whose capture led to the information. But the official said "documentary evidence" found after the capture had demonstrated in extraordinary detail that Qaeda members had for years conducted sophisticated and extensive reconnaissance of the financial institutions cited in the warnings on Sunday.

One senior U.S. intelligence official said the information was more detailed and precise than any he had seen during his 24-year career in intelligence work. A second senior U.S. official said it had provided a new window into the methods, content and distribution of Qaeda communications.

"This, for us, is a potential treasure-trove," said a third senior U.S. official, an intelligence expert, at a briefing for reporters on Sunday afternoon.

The documentary evidence, whose contents were reported urgently to Washington on Friday afternoon, immediately elevated the significance of other intelligence information gathered in recent weeks that had already been regarded as highly troubling, senior U.S. intelligence officials said. Much of that information had come from Qaeda detainees in Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia, as well as Pakistan, and some had also pointed to a possible attack on financial institutions, senior U.S. intelligence officials said.

The U.S. officials said the new evidence had been obtained only after the capture of the Qaeda figure. Among other things, they said, it demonstrated that Qaeda plotters had begun casing buildings in New York, Washington, and Newark, New Jersey, even before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Among the questions the plotters sought to answer, senior U.S. intelligence officials said, were how best to gain access to the targeted buildings; how many people might be at the sites at different hours and on different days of the week; whether a hijacked oil tanker truck could serve as an effective weapon; and how large an explosive device might be required to bring the buildings down.

The U.S. officials would say only that the Qaeda figure whose capture had led to the discovery of the documentary evidence had been captured with the help of the CIA.

But an account provided by a Pakistani intelligence official made clear that the crucial capture in recent weeks had been that of Khan, who is also known as Abu Talha. The intelligence official provided information describing Khan as having assisted in evaluating potential U.S. and Western targets for terrorist attacks, and as being representative of a "new Al Qaeda."

Again, the lede implies just the opposite: "The unannounced capture of a figure from Al Qaeda in Pakistan several weeks ago led the CIA to the rich lode of information that prompted the terror alert on Sunday, according to senior U.S. officials."

There's no doubt that the reporters spoke to both American and Pakistani officials. But they do not overtly credit either with being the "first." And the quotes you mention don't shed much light. They just offer more info on Khan.

The article that began this thread says just the opposite (but it could be wrong, of course): "His arrest was first reported in American newspapers on Aug. 2 after it was disclosed to reporters by U.S. officials in Washington. Later, the Pakistan government also confirmed his capture but gave no other details."

So, it's still not clear who leaked. But Rice's comments did not assure me that it was from the Pakistani side.

Listen, I'm not going to say this often, but the Slimes journalist who wrote that article did a very precise job.

Re-read it. Note the paragraphing.

Every paragraph where it is stated that, 'Khan is the name of the guy' that specificity is noted to have come from a Pakistani official.

Every paragraph where administration officials are attributed are general information being acknowledged and confirmed after the facts were (apparently) presented to that official by the reporter.

I'm not going to go back through to parse it yet again, but I don't believe there is a single exception. The journalist did a great job with clarity.
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But the article says that the US officials got a lot of information frome the recent capture of the two men and that the Pakistanis identified Khan as the source of the information.

It may be that the US official did give out the name on the condition that it not be used in the article, but that is not what the article implies.

What is clear to ME is that the author who wrote THIS "Leak allowed escape" article had the same difficulty in READING the NYSlimes 2Aug04 article that YOU are having. Clearly that is the source of the confusion, and in this case it is NOT the fault of the original journalist.

I can not understand why anybody is having any difficulty here. That article is so well written!

Why you insist that the first paragraph be a statement of chronology, rather than having it be about the CREDIBILITY of the information, I can not imagine.

EVERY paragraph states that the name "KHAN" comes from Paks; and general confirmation of operations resulting comes from US officials.
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Perhaps this would be a good article to give in a "reading comprehension" test.

Seems to me that the reporters wanted proof that these alerts were not political spin.

Rice's comments about background seem to me to mean the name and evidence was shared with the reporters with the understanding that this was merely to prove the genuineness of the alerts--they weren't invented, they came from real sources, real people.

And the NYT used that as an exclusive.

Am I wrong?

Fair enough. That's a very nuanced reading, and it may or may not be accurate. A similiar reading of Rice's comments does not support this. One wishes that Rice had then disagreed, rather than confirmed, Blitzer's contention that Khan's name had been "disclosed in Washington on background."

Instead, she veered into talk about "striking a balance."

I think that the lack of comprehension is more likely a case of, none are so blind as those who will not see.

Like I said, this is a bogus smear campaign, aimed at taking the attention away from the Kerry war record.

I have broken down the original August 2nd NYSlimes article, attributing the exact information to the correct person(s). First, I listed all the information given by the Pakistani official, then I listed all the information given by the American officials. Throughout this entire article, none of the words have been changed except the order in which the words were written. I only made a couple of comments myself; those are clearly marked in blue.

Information provided to the NYTimes by "the Pakistani intelligence official"

-The figure, Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan, was described by a Pakistani intelligence official as:

a 25-year-old computer engineer, arrested July 13, who had used and helped to operate a secret Qaeda communications system where information was transferred via coded messages.

-An account provided by a Pakistani intelligence official made clear that:

the crucial capture in recent weeks had been that of Mr. Khan, who is also known as Abu Talha.

-The intelligence official provided information:

describing Mr. Khan as having assisted in evaluating potential American and Western targets for terrorist attacks, and as being representative of a "new Al Qaeda."

-The Pakistani official described:

Mr. Khan as a fluent English speaker who had told investigators that he had visited the United States, Britain, Germany and other countries.

Mr. Khan was one of thousands of Pakistani militants who trained in Afghanistan under the Taliban in the 1990's, the Pakistani official said.

-If indeed Mr. Khan was the man whose arrest led the C.I.A. to new evidence [the reporter is guessing here because the CIA won't tell him],...

...his [Kahn's] role as a kind of clearinghouse of Qaeda communications, as described by the Pakistani intelligence official [the Pakistani official said Kahn's role was as a "clearinghouse"],...
...could have made him a vital source of information [another guess by the reporter].

-The Pakistani official said:

Since his arrest, Mr. Khan has described an elaborate communications system that involves the use of high and low technology,

-According to the information provided by a Pakistani intelligence official:

The Qaeda communications system that Mr. Khan used and helped operate relied on Web sites and e-mail addresses in Turkey, Nigeria and the northwestern tribal areas of Pakistan

-The official said:

Mr. Khan had told investigators that couriers carried handwritten messages or computer disks from senior Qaeda leaders hiding in isolated border areas to hard-line religious schools in Pakistan's Northwest Frontier Province.

-The Pakistani official said:

Other couriers then ferried them to Mr. Khan on the other side of the country in the eastern city of Lahore, and the computer expert then posted the messages in code on Web sites or relayed them electronically

-The official said:

Mr. Khan had told investigators that most of Al Qaeda's communications were now done through the Internet,
After a message was sent and read by the recipient, the entire communication and related files were deleted to maintain secrecy.
Mr. Khan had told investigators that e-mail addresses were generally not used more than a few times.

-The official said:

The young computer engineer, who received a bachelor's degree from a university in Karachi, is the unemployed son of an employee of Pakistan's state airline and a college botany professor,
Heavily built and 6 feet 2 inches tall, he speaks English with a British accent, and was arrested carrying a fake Pakistani identification card.

-The Pakistani official said:

Mr. Khan told investigators that he had received 25 days of training at a militant camp in Afghanistan in June 1998.
By the time Mr. Khan had risen to his current position, Qaeda figures had arranged his marriage and were paying him $170 a month for rent for his house in Lahore and $90 for expenses.
Mr. Khan was in contact with the brother of the Indonesian Qaeda leader Hambali, who was studying in a religious school in Karachi, and who was recently deported.
Mr. Khan has told interrogators that his Qaeda handler was a Pakistani he knew as Adil or Imran, who assigned him tasks related to computer work, Web design and managing the handler's messages.
His correspondents included a Saudi-based Yemeni, Egyptian and Palestinian nationals and Arabs in unknown locations, and someone described as the "in-charge" in the city of Khost in eastern Afghanistan.

-The Pakistani intelligence official said:

Asked about the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, Mr. Khan has told interrogators that even the top Qaeda commanders do not know,

Information provided to the NYTimes by US/American officials

-According to senior American officials:

The unannounced capture of a figure from Al Qaeda in Pakistan several weeks ago led the Central Intelligence Agency to the rich lode of information that prompted the terror alert on Sunday,

-A senior United States official:

would not confirm or deny that Mr. Khan had been the Qaeda figure whose capture led to the information.

-But the official said:

"documentary evidence" found after the capture had demonstrated in extraordinary detail that Qaeda members had for years conducted sophisticated and extensive reconnaissance of the financial institutions cited in the warnings on Sunday.

-One senior American intelligence official said:

the information was more detailed and precise than any he had seen during his 24-year career in intelligence work.

A second senior American official said:

it had provided a new window into the methods, content and distribution of Qaeda communications.

-A third senior American official, an intelligence expert, said at a briefing for reporters on Sunday afternoon:

"This, for us, is a potential treasure trove."

-Senior American intelligence officials said:

The documentary evidence, whose contents were reported urgently to Washington on Friday afternoon, immediately elevated the significance of other intelligence information gathered in recent weeks that had already been regarded as highly troubling,

-Senior American intelligence officials said:

Much of that information had come from Qaeda detainees in Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia as well as Pakistan, and some had also pointed to a possible attack on financial institutions

The American officials said:

the new evidence had been obtained only after the capture of the Qaeda figure.

-They said:

among other things, it demonstrated that Qaeda plotters had begun casing the buildings in New York, Newark and Washington even before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

-Senior American intelligence officials said:

Among the questions the plotters sought to answer, were how best to gain access to the targeted buildings; how many people might be at the sites at different hours and on different days of the week; whether a hijacked oil tanker truck could serve as an effective weapon; and how large an explosive device might be required to bring the buildings down.

-The American officials would say only that:

the Qaeda figure whose capture had led to the discovery of the documentary evidence had been captured with the help of the C.I.A.

-The American officials suggested that:

though Pakistan announced the arrest last week of a Qaeda member, Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, a Tanzanian wanted in connection with the 1998 bombings of American embassies in East Africa, [Ghailani] had not been the source of the new threat information.

-The question of how much to rely on information obtained from captured foes has always weighed on the intelligence business.
-In recent weeks, even as American intelligence officials cited accounts from some captured Qaeda members as the basis for new concerns about terrorism, they have acknowledged that:

another captured Qaeda figure, Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, had recanted claims that Iraq had provided training in illicit weapons to Qaeda members.

-Mr. Libi's earlier claims had been the primary basis for assertions by President Bush and his top advisers that Iraq had provided training in "poisons and gases" to Qaeda members.
-In explaining the decision to call a new terror alert, American officials would say only that:

the evidence obtained by the C.I.A. after the arrest of the Qaeda figure in Pakistan had provided a richer, more credible source of intelligence than could have been provided by any single individual.

-They declined to say:

whether the "documentary evidence" included physical documents or might also include electronic information stored on computers, such as copies of e-mail communications.

Hmmmm? Maybe it was planned! Maybe it was a way to get the purported "Al Qaeda suspects to escape" and give them entrance into the workings of the main group planning attacks on the USA .. could be a very good thing .. and the NYT was the perfect patsy to use to "leak" the info!!! I love the thought!

Like I've always said .. don't play poker with President Bush.

You may not be a troll, but I still think that the saying, none is so blind as those who will not see, applies.

The only people who are jeopardizing the War on Terror are on the left. The NYT falls into that category.