The Shut Off Valve Doesn’t Work
The leak that resulted in the US and UK pulling non-essential personnel from Yemen was a two-stage affair. Initially someone in the Obama administration leaked to the New York Times that the alert was the result of a high-level conversation among al Qaeda leaders.
McClatchy, who still has foreign correspondents, contacted Yemeni officials, and seeing that the White House was talking about it, one of them gave McClatchy the names of the people involved.
McClatchy reports that Yemen is annoyed with the US:
SANAA, Yemen — Yemeni officials on Tuesday sharply denounced the United States’ decision to evacuate some of its staff from its embassy in the country in the first sign of a split between allies over the Obama administration’s reaction to what U.S. officials say is one of the most specific terrorism threats in years.
…The closures were triggered, a Yemeni official told McClatchy on Sunday, by an intercepted message between the head of al Qaida, Ayman al Zawahiri, and the head of al Qaida’s Yemen-based affiliate, Nasir al Wuhayshi, in which Zawahiri issued a clear order for Wuhayshi to launch an attack.
This revelation is so bad that even John McCain and Lindsey Graham have figured out it was bad.
If, after Obama leaves office, Edward Snowden decides to return to the US for trial, this incident will be cited by his defense team. You have to go back to Ronald Reagan for leaks this bad.
