The Right State

Late last week, I wrote here about the firing of Mary O. McCarthy for leaking classified material to Dana Priest at the Washington Post.  It appears that, McCarthy did not like the policy of the Bush administration in regards to either the Global War on Terror or the War in Iraq.  Releasing and disclosing classified material is a crime.  It hurts American interests and this country is less safe due to the subversive actions of these two individuals.  I am still waiting for the two of them to spend jail time together.

But now comes another story out of the Houston Chronicle of another leak.  The story starts out fairly innocuously, about a possible split between Usama bin Laden and his lieutenant, Ayman al-Zawahri.  The writer, Katherine Shrader of the AP, notes these two terrorist organizers do not seem to be running together anymore.  She goes on to speculate that one of the reasons might be they do not really trust one another, as Zawahri surrounds himself by Egyptians and bin Ladin by Al Qieda members.  Apparently, the January 13^th predator attack which killed several al Qieda members and barely missed Zawahri was so specific that the information concerning the meeting could have only come from an inside source.  As a result the two leaders do not know who to trust.  The two are split apart and they are hiding in different areas surrounded by their own people.

Sounds good so far, right?  Except for the article goes on to tell where intelligence officials think Zawahri and bin Laden are believed to be hiding along with this statement:

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to media, said bin Laden and some associates were hiding in Waziristan, near the Afghan border, at the time. The official would not elaborate on who those associates were or who had sheltered the al-Qaida leader.

I enjoyed the article, especially the part where the two terrorist masterminds do not trust each other.  Too bad!  While I enjoy reading of the trials of those who attacked us on 9/11, I do not think these intelligence officials have a right to share sensitive and classified material to the press whether they agree or disagree with the President.  The sooner the Bush administration cracks down on these leakers, the quicker these people will stop talking to the press.  This is not some innocuous leaks concerning where to build the next military chow hall, this is material that could be detrimental to the operations of our military units.  Secrecy is one of their tools.  If bin Laden and Zawahri were actually hiding in Waziristan and near the Afghan border, then they could possibly move disrupting carefully laid plans to catch these two terrorists.  Or even worse, a trap could be set up to kill our soldiers.  These leakers need to be reprimanded at the very least for the lesser of these offenses and given jail time for the more serious disclosures,then these leaks would stop.

Tags: War //