Another US "Intelligence" Screw-Up: Qaeda Goes Dark After a U.S. Slip

The Intelligence community, headed by the CIA, has been totally ineffective at stopping 9/11 or any of the other terrorist attacks the preceded it. I has been very, very effective at taking down George W. Bush and harming the war effort. The latest blow it has struck for al Qaeda is to release the fact that we have penetrated their Internet network.

WASHINGTON — Al Qaeda's Internet communications system has suddenly gone dark to American intelligence after the leak of Osama bin Laden's September 11 speech inadvertently disclosed the fact that we had penetrated the enemy's system.

The intelligence blunder started with what appeared at the time as an American intelligence victory, namely that the federal government had intercepted, a full four days before it was to be aired, a video of Osama bin Laden's first appearance in three years in a video address marking the sixth anniversary of the attacks of September 11, 2001. On the morning of September 7, the Web site of ABC News posted excerpts from the speech.

But the disclosure from ABC and later other news organizations tipped off Qaeda's internal security division that the organization's Internet communications system, known among American intelligence analysts as Obelisk, was compromised.

The Valerie Plame wing of the CIA strikes again. Great going guys.