Jonathan Frahm
Staff Writer
President Barack Obama made headlines this Sunday after a surprise visit to Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan.
Unfortunately, while the President was making the rounds, shaking hands with all of the airfield’s stationed troops and subsequently raising morale, the White House was making a mistake that even “high profile” couldn’t begin to fully describe.
The accident in question? As it turns out, the White House had spilled the name of the CIA’s top official in Afghanistan to approximately 6,000 journalists present to chronicle President Obama’s visit.
While it’s not uncommon for lists of people attending a military briefing to be released to the public, it’s not all too often that a top operative’s cover is mistakenly blown by the very people that they’re working for.
Especially embarrassing in this case is that the print pool reporter given initial access to the list to overview and then distribute to all other journalists was the same person to notice the mistake – after he had distributed them. After noticing the odd “Chief of Station” title present on the list, the White House bureau chief of the Washington Post, Scott Wilson, reported the news to a house official. Subsequently, the official stated to Wilson, “This is a problem.”
Later, the lists were pulled and replaced with the dangerous error eradicated, but not before reaching the eyes of several thousand journalists.
Former CIA officer Valerie Plame, whose name was leaked in a similar fashion by the Bush administration back in 2003, stated over Twitter that the White House’s striking thunder twice with such an unfortunate occurrence is “astonishing.” That’s to say the very least!
Astonishing: White House mistakenly identifies CIA chief in Afghanistan http://t.co/QKKczt6CgF via @washingtonpost
— Valerie Plame Wilson (@ValeriePlame) May 26, 2014
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