British Intelligence dropped the ball on pre-9/11 suspect?

[Ambient Sheep]

Edited down from this article in today's Guardian:

British intelligence about a terrorist suspect arrested in the US in 2001 could have helped disrupt the September 11 plot, but an urgent request for information was treated as a low priority in London, a commission of inquiry found yesterday.

A report by the commission staff published last night said that the FBI tried to find out as much as possible about a French citizen, Zacarias Moussaoui, who was arrested on August 16 as he was learning how to fly a jumbo jet on a flight simulator.

As Mr Moussaoui, now on trial for his involvement in the September 11 plot, had once lived in London, an FBI legal attaché in London "promptly prepared a written request of the British government for information concerning Moussaoui and hand delivered the request on August 21.

"The case, though handled expeditiously at the American end, was not handled by the British as a priority amid a large number of other terrorist-related inquiries," the report said.

It was only on September 13, two days after the attacks in New York and Washington killed nearly 3,000 people, that the British discovered Mr Moussaoui had attended an al-Qaida training camp in Afghanistan, the report said.

Whoops!  True, or US-arse-covering-lies?  Probably the former, sadly.

[Pinball]

Probably both. A "matter of emphasis", I would say (i.e. maximise the blame vs. the British as a misinformation ploy). This won't assist inter-agency relations in the Crusade Against Brown Offensive Oil-rich Muslims (CABOOM).

[fanny splendid]

BBC news report.

[Ambient Sheep]

BBC news report.

Very good!  More people should see this, so BUMP.  It's not quite what you think.

[weekender]

Wow, the plot thickens.

[joFFeman]

in other news, my balls have finally dropped.