Here is the exchange between Condoleeza Rice and Wolf on "Firing Line" with Wolf Blitzer:
Quote:
Wolf had the following exchange with Condo Rice
"BLITZER: Let's talk about some of the people who have been picked up, mostly in Pakistan, over the last few weeks. In mid-July, Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan. There is some suggestion that by releasing his identity here in the United States, you compromised a Pakistani intelligence sting operation, because he was effectively being used by the Pakistanis to try to find other al Qaeda operatives. Is that true?
RICE: Well, I don't know what might have been going on in Pakistan. I will say this, that we did not, of course, publicly disclose his name. One of them...
BLITZER: He was disclosed in Washington on background.
RICE: On background. And the problem is that when you're trying to strike a balance between giving enough information to the public so that they know that you're dealing with a specific, credible, different kind of threat than you've dealt with in the past, you're always weighing that against kind of operational considerations. We've tried to strike a balance. We think for the most part, we've struck a balance, but it's indeed a very difficult balance to strike."
Does "background" mean "for info only not to be published"? Still, you gotta love Condo. She is the master of talking a lot and saying nothing while simultaneously dodging the initial point.
Jeez! You'd think compromising the very undercover sting operations necessary to make America safer (& for political gain) would elicit more concern among some of you as well as a good percentage of the American media.
