Did Someone Screw up?

Andy McCarthy of NRO’s The Corner questions the release of information that led to the death of al Zarqawi. Stuart Buck of The Buck Stops Here questions and wonders of the motive as well.

Andy McCarthy is right -- if this New York Times story about the killing of Zarqawi is true, it is absolutely unbelievable that someone at the Pentagon, as well as the Times itself, would burn a good intelligence asset that way. If (and I do emphasize that "if") it's true that someone at the Pentagon leaked that we have an informant highly placed inside Al Qaeda, that Pentagon official should go to jail for a very long time.

UPDATE: A commenter points out that this might be a disinformation campaign. I guess I agree; surely no one at the Pentagon would be so idiotic as to think he could get away with exposing a source inside Al Qaeda in this way.

America is curious on how an enemy of Americans and Iraqis was taken down or at least I was curious. On the other hand, if the account is true and not disinformation, it may have been better to release the information at a better date in which American Intelligence resources are protected. If there are Mohammedans wavering in their blind allegiance to terrorizing innocent people in the name of Mohammed American Intelligence would want to create a scenario to encourage coming forth with information. McCarthy and Stuart Buck are correct: publicizing an account in this fashion would discourage future informants.