Burning Khan

In the comments on 14cyclenotes' LiveJournal there's a discussion going about the Bush administration's burning of Mohammed Naeem Noor Khan, the al Qaeda member arrested in Lahore last month who had been cooperating with Pakistani authorities in identifying other al Qaeda members in Pakistan and in Britain. The leak of Khan's name is being compared to last year's blowing of the cover of CIA undercover operative Valerie Plame by Scooter Libby an as-yet-unidentified Bush Administration official.

We won't know the full story in either case until the dust settles. But at this point in time it appears that the key difference between the Plame case and the Khan case is that Plame was burned as an act of political malice, whereas Khan's name was divulged because the "senior White House officials" who divulged it were unaware of the consequences.

The Boston Globe today reported many details of the gaffe that quashed the ongoing operation.

Here's what happened: After Tom Ridge gave his August 1 press conference saying that the terror alert was based on new information, "senior government officials" gave a backgrounder on the issue. A "backgrounder" is sort of like a press conference, except that the person at the front of the room answering questions is not to be identified. (It's chief purpose seems to be to lend information authenticity by making it seem to newspaper readers like the information is a hot tip from a covert source rather than just another of serving of prepared spin by the flacks.)

After the official backgrounder, the members of the press corps went off to buttonhole their individual intelligence, terrorism, or national security contacts. The guy who spoke to the Globe reporters didn't give any names. The guy who talked to the Times reporters gave Khan's name, and the Times printed it.

It's all part of the spin cycle. Whoever manages that cycle -- maybe Andy Card, maybe Scott McClellan, I don't know -- knows which "senior White House official" spoke to the Times.

In an administration that cared about successes and failures, the guy who spoke to the Times would be hung out to dry. But no matter how catastrophic the results of their bungles and gaffes might be, Bush staffers' jobs are secure so long as they are loyal to the cause.

Good, thorough analysis of the Khan affair can be found at Juan Cole's Informed Comment, beginning here.