the Greater Nomadic Council

How Bush Fights Terrorists

Juan Cole has an update on the Khan outing:

The Bush administration revealed Khan's name to US journalists on Sunday August 1 on background, and it appeared in the US press on Monday. The Bush administration thus effectively outed Khan as a double agent (he sent emails to his London contacts as late as Monday).

The British MI5 was forced to have the London cell of 13 arrested immediately on Tuesday, fearing that they would flee now that they knew Khan had been arrested two weeks earlier. The British do not, however, appear to have finished gathering enough evidence to prosecute the 13 in the courts successfully.

It now turns out, according to Neville, that "Reports last week also claimed that five al Qaida militants were on the run in the UK after escaping capture in last Tuesday’s raids." If this is true, it is likely that the 5 went underground on hearing that Khan was in custody. That is, the loose lips of the Bush administration enabled them to flee arrest.

Combine this latest bit of ineptitude with the massive distraction of Iraq, plus the refusal to attack known terrorist camps in Kurd-controlled Iraq prior to that war and you start to wonder if Bush is actually serious about defeating terrorists. Or, to be more exact, if he's capable of it.