July Surprises

Yesterday, just a few hours before John Kerry gave his acceptance speech in Boston, Pakistan announced that it had apprehended Ahmed Ghailani, a "major" Al Qaeda operative connected to the 1998 embassy bombings, and one of the 22 people on the FBI's "Most Wanted" list.

If you think that the timing of the announcement was merely a coincidence, even if a convenient one for the Bush administration, think again. Here's what The New Republic reported on July 19, 2004 [link]:

But The New Republic has learned that Pakistani security officials have been told that they must produce HVTs [high value targets] by the election. According to one source in Pakistan's powerful Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), "The Pakistani government is really desperate and wants to flush out bin Laden and his associates after the latest pressures from the U.S. administration to deliver before the [upcoming] U.S. elections."

. . .

A third source, an official who works under ISI's director, Lieutenant General Ehsan ul-Haq, informed TNR that the Pakistanis "have been told at every level that apprehension or killing of HVTs before [the] election is [an] absolute must." What's more, this source claims that Bush administration officials have told their Pakistani counterparts they have a date in mind for announcing this achievement: "The last ten days of July deadline has been given repeatedly by visitors to Islamabad and during [ul-Huq's] meetings in Washington." Says [National Security Council spokesman Sean] McCormack, "I'm aware of no such comment." But according to this ISI official, a White House aide told ul-Huq last spring that "it would be best if the arrest or killing of [any] HVT were announced on twenty-six, twenty-seven, or twenty-eight July" -- the first three days of the Democratic National Convention in Boston."

Still not convinced that the timing was intentional? Well, according to the New York Times, Ghailani was arrested on Sunday, yet the announcement didn't come until Thursday. [link] 

Hmmm.

[I wanted to note that I saw this on the TNR website this morning, then read about it again on Talking Points Memo [link], and recalled that I had read about this on TPM in May [link].  I guess that that means technically, credit for this lead properly goes to TPM.]