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July 20, 2005

To the Editors,

On August 2, 2004 the New York Times published the name of Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan, a member of Al-Qaeda cooperating in a sting operation following his arrest on July 13, 2004 [1].

On August 8, 2004 Condoleeza Rice confirmed that his name had been disclosed to the media [1, 2].

Despite sufficient evidence to convict British authorities arrested members of the terrorist cell with whom Kahn had been communicating following the outing of Kahn's name, later releasing two of them. Five other suspects evaded arrest [1].

On July 14, 2005, ABC News reported that one man responsible for the London bombings was connected to the aborted sting operation [3].

With the revelations that Karl Rove and 'Scooter' Libby leaked Valerie Plame's name and thus burned CIA intelligence assets protecting our country from WMD threats [4], we begin to see a pattern of either incompetence bordering on the criminal, or more disturbingly, a penchant for exposing intelligence for political gain.

I am confident that if the allegedly 'liberal' media were to connect the dots that true patriots would be outraged by these betrayals of the public's trust and seek a removal of this administration from office.

Fortunately (for the Bush Administration) with the hurried nomination of John Roberts as Supreme Court nominee, these triffling matters are now pushed out of the news cycle.

P.S. This would make a great in-depth Statesman investigation ala the previous dangers of underground petroleum pipelines and quality of prison health-care investigations. Will ya'll step up to the challenge?

[1] Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan Wikipedia entry.

[2] Okay, this simply won't fly, Talking Points Memo, August 09, 2004.

[3] London Bombers Tied to Al Qaeda Plot in Pakistan, Brian Ross, ABC News, July 14, 2005.

[4] Plame Leak Exposed Brewster Jennings Asset on Oil, WMD, Sherlock Google, Daily KoS, July 3, 2005.