Monumental Fuck-up

We have already two days running made posts about the Plame Identity and the Pakistan Supremacy They are just down the page a bit if you wan't some background. Juan Cole has more on the story and brought to my attention a couple of graphs from cnn.com. Please read Cole's take, I can't really add much more of substance, other than that allready expressed in the title of the post but I see something worth riffing on in these two graphs (from cole).

The unnamed U.S. officials leaked Khan's name along with confirmation that most of the surveillance data was three or four years old, arguing that its age was irrelevant because al Qaeda planned attacks so far in advance . . .

This is and is not funny. I have no doubt that we are dealing with a very patient crew in al-queda, and if you want success diligent planning is a part of it. But I really wanted to ask If we maybe can't borrow some of their guys with the planning type skills so when we stumble into another middle eastern sand pit we don't look like complete imbiciles 18 months later

Then on Friday, after Khan's name was revealed, government sources told CNN that counterterrorism officials had seen a drop in intercepted communications among suspected terrorists."

Basically we blew the cover of a big dude with lots of connections, Fantastic! We mistakenly Identify the guy. Very bad. If they were smart (and they are) codes will be changing communication pathways will be modified, passwords changed, in effect activities that by the hour diminish the value of your intelligence. This is probably a good in the short term thing, slows them down a bit, but potentialy puts us back further than before we started