Remember the Al Qaeda computer dude whose name was allegedly leaked by the Bush Administration to take the heat off Howard Dean’s clams that the recent terror alerts were cooled? Well it turns out that his name was most likely leaked by the Pakistani intelligence service:
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. Though Pakistan announced the arrest last week of a Qaeda member, Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, a Tanzanian wanted in connection with the bombings of American embassies in East Africa in 1998, the American officials suggested that he had not been the source of the new threat information.
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.” [Emphasis added]
It’s all pretty speculative still, but it does appear that Reuters jumped the gun in blaming Bush for this fiasco.