Gregory Djerejian: On Unprofessional French Intelligence

Gregory Djerejian addresses a moronic and typically French public affairs indulgance, a kind of me!me!me! moment in front of a microphone where the speaker is pretending to look wise:

«In the wake of the July 7 terrorist attacks in London, Scotland Yard brought together law enforcement and intelligence officials from two dozen European countries and the United States, sharing crucial intelligence and pleading for help in tracking down the bombers.

But the continentwide kumbaya was shattered when Christophe Chaboud, France's new antiterrorism coordinator, broke the cardinal rule of the club.

He leaked.

In an interview with Le Monde that appeared on the newsstands last Monday afternoon - two days after the exceptionally open briefing - Mr. Chaboud announced to the world that he knew "the nature of the explosives" used in the London bombings.
It "appears to be military, which is very worrisome," he said, adding: "We're more used to cells making homemade explosives from chemical substances. How did they get them? Either by trafficking, for example, in the Balkans, or they had someone on the inside who enabled them to get them out of a military base."

But Mr. Chaboud did not stop with his assessments of the explosives and their origins, which, it turned out, were completely wrong. He plunged into politics, railing at the British with an I-told-you-so air that Europe was a more dangerous place because of the war in Iraq.

How dare he leak erroneous information so irresponsibly? How dare he be so breath-takingly self-serving and duplicitous so soon after the death of so many innocent Britons? It's really bloody low, even by the deathly low standards of the Chirac government. And to think this lack of class was what was getting me hot under the collar a couple days back. How much worse it gets, eh? I'm naive, it seems, when it comes to the potential for perfidious going-ons from points Paris.»

Some of us call that a fragging, a form of sabotage. The key here is that he "announced to the world that he knew" something that no-one else could have, and from no evidence or confimation of whatever intelligence he had, or rumor that he heard. What a pro. I wish the french citizenry luck because the will certainly need it.