Osama Bin Leakin'

According to an article in the Washington Post today, the most recent Osama Bin Laden tape was leaked to the press prematurely by someone within the White House. The SITE intelligence group had acquired a copy of the video and released it to the Bush administration on the condition that they not release it prior to Al Qaeda's release expected weeks later. The founder of the company says the disclosure tipped Al Qaeda to a security breach and destroyed a surveillance operation the company has used to collect messages, videos and warnings of bombings from the terrorist group's communications network.

The fact that the leak occurred so rapidly after the acquisition by White House officials leads me to wonder who and why the decision was made. I have a theory that the rapidly approaching 9/11 anniversary, General Petraeus' speech before congress and images of Osama were all used to try and drum up support for the war effort. Last time I checked, the war is just as unpopular as it was a few weeks ago. I hope that the administration feels it was worth ruining a valuable resource for the real war on terror in order to take the heat off themselves for a few minutes.