News You Can Only Get in Europe

MANIFESTO

In today's London Times, the real story about the guy Bush slapped himself on the back about during his infomercial, I mean press conference, last week...

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...

Bush called him a “top general” and “a major facilitator and chief planner for the Al- Qaeda network”. Condoleezza Rice, secretary of state, said he was “a very important figure”. Yet 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.

I'm not even sure where to begin with this. I have absolutely no idea how I am supposed to react to this with anything other than flip sarcasm. Glad we're winning the war though!