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A couple weeks ago, I blogged on a story about the Bush administration asking Pakistan to deliver a High-Value Target - any important al Qaeda operative - in July, "'it would be best if the arrest or killing of [any] HVT were announced on twenty-six, twenty-seven, or twenty-eight July'--the first three days of the Democratic National Convention in Boston."
Guess what? On Sunday, Pakistan arrested Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, a Tanzanian wanted in the 1998 bombings at U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. "Ghailani--who is on the FBI's list of 22 most wanted terrorists, with a reward of up to $25 million on his head--was arrested Sunday in the eastern city of Gujrat along with at least 15 other people,"
Wolf Blitzer announced the arrest on CNN moments before John Kerry gave his acceptence speech. Right on schedule. That's the kind of campaign Bush runs. We saw that type of "win at any cost" campaigning in 2000 when the Bush campaign used push polls in South Carolina to imply that John McCain had an illigitimate black child.
Whoever isn't pissed off about Bush, isn't paying attention.
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Yeah. While I applaud Bush for finally laying some smack down on Pakistan,
it's clear we can only expect it in an election year.
The LA Times has the whole story, including the New Republic report. The intelligence community is coming down on Pakistan/Bush for announcing the arrest without interrogating the guy first,
"He's been on the run since 1998 so you have five years of critical intelligence that can be mined: where he has been, who he has been with, how his operations worked," the official said.
"Now, anything that he was involved in is being shredded, burned and, thrown in a river," the official said. "We have to assume anyone affiliated with this guy is on the run … when usually, we can get great stuff as long as we can keep it quiet."
Several U.S. officials said it was unclear why Pakistan publicized the arrest. A spokeswoman at the Pakistani Embassy in Washington said she had no information on such details.
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