Khan update

Juan Cole notes that Condoleezza Rice conceded to Wolf Blitzer that the Bush administration released Khan's name on background. I have no idea how Blitzer knew, since the New York Times story which exposed Khan cited a Pakistani intelligence official (see post below).

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. [snip]

Now I think the Bush administration probably knows who gave a background briefing to Doublas Jehl (the co-author of the story, David Rohde, is in Pakistan). This person should be fired.

It seems possible to me that the the Pakistani official denounced below, blew Khan first and that Rice, who claims profound ignorance about the issue, doesn't know.

In any case, the extensive Bush administration public statements about a trove documents including the floor plans of the world bank and the IMF risked tipping off al Qaeda if such a trove is to be found only on Khan's hard disk.