Missile Bust A Missed Opportunity?

[dArKeR]

Newsweek, however, reports top Justice Department officials are privately upset over a premature news leak of Lakhani's arrest that may have ruined a rare opportunity to penetrate Al Qaeda's arms-buying network.

"Efforts to 'flip' the informant (Lakhani) were essentially aborted by a news leak, first to the BBC, that essentially ended any hopes of the FBI flipping the informant, because you can't use an informant who's been burned," Newsweek correspondent Michael Isikoff told CBS Radio News.

In Texas, President Bush said Lakhani's arrest undercuts criticism by Democrats that his administration was not doing enough to fight terrorism. "The fact that we're able to sting this guy is a pretty good example of what we're doing in order to protect the American people," Mr. Bush said.

But Newsweek reports federal officials are upset.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/08/12/attack/main567955.shtml

The media are whores! Bush is incompetent and unable to manage the White House. End of Story!

http://darkerxdarker.tripod.com/

[dArKeR]

1. News Leak Blows Big Opportunity - Newsweek

While publicly congratulating themselves over the bust of an international arms dealer in an alleged plot to sell Russian-made surface-to-air missiles, top Justice Department officials are privately fuming over a premature news leak that may have blown a rare opportunity to penetrate Al Qaeda’s arms-buying network, NEWSWEEK has learned.

http://www.msnbc.com/news/952001.asp?0cv=CB10

I'm very suspicious of this supposed 'leak'. With no info and just guessing I would say this is a staged event. I don't think any Media Whore Reporters 99%, whom we are NSA agents, would even attempt to publish this story. Then the story has to get past the Chief Editor. And with this story I'm sure the news company would contact the Pentagon before hand to verify the contents. Thus the Pentagon would say, 'don't run the story.' And I'm sure the news company would have to listen because the Patriot Act would have the authority to freeze this story, I'm sure.

http://darkerxdarker.tripod.com/

[htuttle]

2. Missed *what* opportunity?

This set of stories continues to baffle me.

In other accounts of the same story, the FBI is quoted as stating that this 'arms dealer' was not suspected of having any al Queda contacts, and was most likely motivated by money alone in this incident. He had no actual contacts to obtain SAMs other than the Russian undercover officer he was set up with.

Here's a quote from the article linked above

Officials say Lakhani is not a terrorist, and not affiliated with al Qaeda. But sources tell CBS News Correspondent Bob Orr the government has the dealer on tape bragging about the weapon's ability to shoot down planes.

What opportunity was missed? (other than the opportunity to bust 'real' terrorists they missed by setting up this sting). The line about him bragging about the missiles sounds more like a salesman in action than anything else.

About all I can think of them missing out on is that they'd hoped to 'turn' wanna-be arms dealer Lakhani into an informant. Since he had no existing al Queda contacts, I'm not sure of the utility of that, but that's what the article said.

The Russians have stated that the most important part of this case was that it showed that the FBI and Russian police can work together on something. Like a live training exercise.

And before I'm misunderstood again: I don't have a problem with the arrests. I have a problem with the spin that this operation helped the 'war on terror' somehow (other than practice on getting the FBI and the Russians to work together, as the Russians mentioned).

[GAspnes]

3. I wondered about this when I heard the initial story

A sting operation almost always is used to flip the crook to follow the trail higher -- either to the supplier or the purchaser(s).

This arrest was promoted as a blow against Al-Qaeda, then quickly reverted to 'just a sting'. The publicity had such a political overtone of 'see how good a job Ashcroft is doing' that it seemed to be exploiting the arrest for PR instead of investigative work.

Wonder who leaked. Someone high up would be my guess.

[htuttle]

4. You're correct about the purpose of a sting

But since there were undercover officers both 'below' and 'above' him in the chain, who would they follow the trail to?

[underpants]

5. Right I don't understand how this could get back to al-Qaeda

He is a financially troubled garment industry "worker" who had no history of arms dealing.

:shrug:

[Snellius]

7. And who was initially leaking stuff abound Air Force One?

When this story first broke, Drudge and several wire reports were holding up headlines asserting that the target of the "terrorists" may have been AF1. Now where did he get that idea? They withdrew it by the next day, but, as is a common technique with the rightwing propaganda machine, the idea is just to get the rumor out there before anyone takes the time to find out whether it's true or not.

[underpants]

9. I'll admit that I fell for it

Luckily some of my fellow DU'ers smacked me up side the head and I saw that it was spin, and from the BBC no less.

[Snellius]

6. They succeeded in catching themselves in their own sting.

Wasn't that clever. This whole affair borders on an entrapment setup. Are they going to sting every potential foreign-born, deep-in-debt alien to test whether they take the bait? Are they really so stupid that they would compromise the national security by not waiting to uncover active terrorists just to cover their ass to pretend they were safequarding the national security?

[jayfish]

8. New Front Opening Up In The War On...

the First Amendment? Free speech zones, artist boycotts, blacklisting... funny how the "media" seems to be responsible for everything these days. Are they trying to soften public opinion about the free press before trying to impose some type on unconstitutional restrictions? It's too bad we don't even have a real press, then maybe they could stand up and fight for themselves.

Jay


-Edited For Punctuation-