[NYTr] Bush Admin's Leak of Osama Video "Ruined" anti-Al Qaida Spy Op

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

The Washington Post via Huffington Post - Oct 9, 2007
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2007/10/09/bush-admins-leak-of-osam_n_67722.html

Bush Admin's Leak Of Osama Video "Ruined" Al Qaida Spying Efforts

Washington Post

A small private intelligence company that monitors Islamic terrorist
groups obtained a new Osama bin Laden video ahead of its official
release last month, and around 10 a.m. on Sept. 7, it notified the Bush
administration of its secret acquisition. It gave two senior officials
access on the condition that the officials not reveal they had it until
the al-Qaeda release.

Within 20 minutes, a range of intelligence agencies had begun
downloading it from the company's Web site. By midafternoon that day,
the video and a transcript of its audio track had been leaked from
within the Bush administration to cable television news and broadcast
worldwide.

The founder of the company, the SITE Intelligence Group, says this
premature disclosure tipped al-Qaeda to a security breach and destroyed
a years-long surveillance operation that the company has used to
intercept and pass along secret messages, videos and advance warnings
of suicide bombings from the terrorist group's communications network.