In May a rumor surfaced on the Internet that a dramatic capture of an Al Qaeda big wig was scheduled to be announced during the last 10 days of July. In its issue that hit the newsstands on July 19th The New Republic reported claims by Pakistani intelligence officers that the US had put pressure on Pakistan to announce the capture of an Al Qaeda high value target “on twenty-six, twenty-seven, or twenty-eight July". On July 29th, Pakistan announced the capture “some days ago” of Tanzanian Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, wanted in connection with the embassy bombings. The announcement came just hours before Senator Kerry’s acceptance speech was scheduled.

They were still cleaning up the convention hall in Boston when Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge went to the television cameras to announce the elevated threat level taking pains to credit “the President’s leadership” with producing the intelligence that uncovered the plot. A highly unusual press briefing by anonymous high intelligence officials breaking the long standing doctrine of intelligence agencies that one does not give up information that will lead to sources and methods of collection. The press briefing did more than point the way to sources and methods. It named them. One name that was mentioned was “Kahn”. Pakistan immediately announced that in mid July it had
”arrested” a key player in the Al Qaeda communications operation, Mohammad Naeem Noor Khan A flurry of arrests followed in Pakistan and Britain.

Yesterday a Reuters story out of Pakistan moved on the wires. Pakistani intelligence officials are saying that the Al Qaeda communications operation had been infiltrated, that Kahn was a double agent reporting to Pakistani Intelligence and the CIA and that when he was named in the unusual press briefing burned him and made the “arrest” necessary. Remember Hassan Ghul? At the time we understood it was just a lucky break that he was caught. Remember the May and June precision air strikes on houses in Fallujah that supposedly sheltered Zarqawi? Kahn’s computers are said to have contained not just e-mail addresses but also locations and the identities of players in the communications network. Those computer files were supposedly recovered only in July. That the US was acting on some of the information contained in them before the “arrest” gives credence to the double agent story coming out of Pakistan,

The old and unanswered question was whether or not intelligence reports were tailored to fit a preconceived plan to make war on Iraq. The new and unanswered question is whether intelligence results are being tailored to fit the President’s re-election campaign. The timing is very convenient to the President’s campaign plan. It makes for very spooky politics.