The Bush administration hates leaks, especially when they involve classified information. They and their allies have made that abundantly and forcefully clear (Plame affair aside). Attorney General Al Gonzales has mounted an investigation into a classified leak to the New York Times; the president and vice president have said the paper’s publishing of classified information has been “very damaging” and “disgraceful.” One GOP lawmaker even charged the paper with treason.
That’s why my antennae started buzzing when I read this paragraph from an Aug. 12 AP story about U.S. government efforts to trace possible domestic links to the recently-foiled London terror plot:
Two. . . U.S. counterterrorism officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the investigation, said the British suspects placed calls to several cities in the United States before their arrests. At least some of the calls were placed to people in New York, Washington, Chicago and Detroit, one official said. The suspects are all British citizens, mostly men in the 20s and 30s of Pakistani descent.
Now, that appears to be remarkably specific intelligence leaked from within an ongoing terror investigation — classified information that could not only reveal sources and methods, but also tip off possible suspects before the Feds got to them.
This “liquid terror” plot has been alleged to have been a serious and immediate threat. Yet almost a week has passed without any comment from the administration about this published account. No one’s called the AP a bunch of traitors. No investigations have been launched. The White House has not condemned the leak or blamed it for possibly costing American lives.
So, why not?
Most likely, the leak was sanctioned. Alternatively, it was originally unsanctioned but aided the administration’s goals, so they let it slide.
(It is also possible, though improbable, that the administration missed the story, or counterterror officials were wilfully spreading misinformation in an effort to trick the suspects. The first is next to impossible; the second, given stringent laws and ethics guidelines, is unlikely.)
Now, just because a leak is sanctioned doesn’t mean it’s wrong, or a reporter is being a shill for the administration for publishing it. Sanctioned leaks happen all the time, for good reasons and bad. What’s more, they tend to be largely accurate, at least in the fragment of truth they reveal.
But the problem with this tidbit about the terrorists’ phone calls is — if it was true information — it would likely undercut a deadly serious and urgent terrorism investigation. That again casts doubt that this leak was “unofficial”: no senior counterterrorism official I know (and, though I never thought I’d say it, I know quite a few) would reveal details of a serious ongoing terrorism investigation unfolding on U.S. soil without specific authorization.
As it happened, the next day USA Today reported officials were saying the phone records were dead ends. “Working with the names of the British suspects,” the paper stated, “investigators did find records of some telephone contacts between Britain and the USA. In short order, it was determined that the calls either involved associates of the suspects or benign family communication that was deemed unrelated to the alleged plot, the officials said.”
The episode leaves behind it more questions than answers. Were the “officials” speaking with USA Today the same who spoke with AP? Were they trying to kill a false leak — or cover up a true one? Were the leads really dead, or did suspects get away? How did this leak come about? And why, in an administration obsessed with secrecy they claim is vital to protect exactly this kind of operation, would such a leak occur, only to be ignored by senior officials?
