Intressant att Rita Katz
från det för en del svenskar så kända SITE institute nu ryker ihop med vita huset om publiceringen av Bin Ladin video för ett
tag sedan. Rita Katz menar i en intervju i Washington Post att Vita Huset förstörde en underättelseop driven av site genom läckande av
videon till Fox News. Det förstörde förstås även alla avtal om försäljning av videon för SITE.
En viktig fråga
är förstås exakt vilka kontakter SITE har eller har haft med Bush Administrationen. Att Katz kunde vända sig direkt till Fred Fielding
är intressant i sig med tanke på hans position som juridiskt rådgivare till president Bush. Likadant varför vände sig inte Katz till
någon inom amerikansk säkerhetstjänsten, som uppenbarligen misstrodde SITE lika mycket som katz.
![]()
src="http://www.jfgv.com/getimage.asp?id=22651" />via War and Piece by Laura on 10/9/07
WP: Site Institute accuses White House of leaking advance copy of bin Laden video to Fox news and other media that shut channel
down. More from the NY Sun which neglects to mention either the White House or Fox news…
NEW YORK — The director of a group that monitors Islamic militant Web sites said
the government leaked an Osama bin Laden video that was passed along to senior U.S. officials on condition that they keep it secret. She
claimed the leak rendered certain intelligence-gathering capabilities ineffective.
The White House said it was not responsible
for the leak, and a senior official said the director of national intelligence should investigate the allegation.
Rita Katz, who
runs the Washington-based SITE Institute, said her decision to pass the video to an official in the Bush administration has had an
impact on the ways that the group has for obtaining these videos before they are made available by al-Qaida.
”Due to the leak,
sources that took years to develop are now ineffective,” Katz told The Associated Press on Tuesday. ”A rare window into the world of al
-Qaida has now been sealed shut.” She declined to elaborate on whether she meant people or methods.
In a story first reported by
The Washington Post on Tuesday, Katz said that on Sept. 7 she contacted White House counsel Fred Fielding, whom she had met before and
trusted, and offered the video and a transcript, long before anyone else had a copy.
Katz said she wanted to give the government
a head start on the video, which she expected al-Qaida to release in the coming hours. She said she did not expect payment for passing
along the information.
White House press secretary Dana Perino said the White House was not responsible for the leak and was
”concerned about it.”
”When the White House refers information from an individual or a company, we refer that appropriately to
the intelligence community. That’s what happened here,” she said.
Fran Townsend, assistant to the president for counterterrorism
and homeland security, told reporters that she would leave any investigation to the director of national intelligence ”to ascertain
what’s the appropriate way of dealing with this and understanding what happened, so we can ensure it doesn’t happen
again.”
Ross Feinstein, spokesman for National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell, said his office had not yet opened an
official investigation, but was looking into the matter.
Katz said Fielding referred her to Joel Bagnal, deputy assistant to the
president for homeland security. Bagnal asked her to pass the transcript and video on to Michael Leiter at the National Counterterrorism
Center. Katz said she also copied Fielding in on the e-mail.
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