Much ado

May 4th, 2005:

President Bush declared Wednesday that the capture of al-Qaida's operational chief in Pakistan "represents a critical victory in the war on terror."

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Bush called him "a major facilitator and a chief planner" for Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida terror network and said that his arrest "removes a dangerous enemy who is a direct threat to America and for those who love freedom."

"I applaud the Pakistani government for their strong cooperation in the war on terror," the president said, adding that the Pakistanis had acted on "solid intelligence" to bring him to justice and vowing that those fighting terrorism will "stay on the offensive until al-Qaida is defeated."

May 8, 2005:

THE capture of a supposed Al-Qaeda kingpin by Pakistani agents last week was hailed by President George W Bush as “a critical victory in the war on terror”. According to European intelligence experts, however, Abu Faraj al-Libbi was not the terrorists’ third in command, as claimed, but a middle-ranker derided by one source as “among the flotsam and jetsam” of the organisation.

(snip)

...the backslapping in Washington and Islamabad has astonished European terrorism experts, who point out that the Libyan was neither on the FBI’s most wanted list, nor on that of the State Department “rewards for justice” programme.

“Al-Libbi is just a ‘middle-level’ leader,” said Jean-Charles Brisard, a French intelligence investigator and leading expert on terrorism finance. “Pakistan and US authorities have completely overestimated his role and importance. He was never more than a regional facilitator between Al-Qaeda and local Pakistani Islamic groups.”