Bushies Blow Cover of Double Agent for Political Gain

This is an amazing story that has been developing over the past week. According to Condoleezza Rice, U.S. officials released the name of Mohammad Naeem Noor Khan to reporters on background a week ago Sunday. A week ago Monday, his name was printed in the New York Times and Khan's cover as a double agent was blown.

That's obviously bad enough, but there's a second question: did it matter? Or was Khan's usefulness already at an end anyway?

Juan Cole has been all over this story. He say the answer: Khan was in email contact with al-Qaeda agents in Britain on Monday and his exposure forced the premature arrest of an al-Qaeda cell in London:

The British MI5 was forced to have the London cell of 13 arrested immediately on Tuesday, fearing that they would flee now that they knew Khan had been arrested two weeks earlier. The British do not, however, appear to have finished gathering enough evidence to prosecute the 13 in the courts successfully.

It now turns out, according to Neville, that "Reports last week also claimed that five al Qaida militants were on the run in the UK after escaping capture in last Tuesday’s raids." If this is true, it is likely that the 5 went underground on hearing that Khan was in custody. That is, the loose lips of the Bush administration enabled them to flee arrest.

It was a Bush administration official who blew Khan's cover, no one appears to have seriously asked journalists not to use his name, and yes, Khan was still providing useful information. These facts don't even appear to be in dispute anymore, and yet the story is still getting only minor attention. Why? What does it take to get the mainstream press interested these days?

Imagine how big this story would be if it were the Clinton administration accused of blowing the cover?